Shirou's life is a game
by Xemness The Scholar
Summary: Basic idea; when Shirou Emiya walked through the cursed fire that marked the end of the fourth Holy Grail war, a small part of the ruined Holy Grail embedding itself into his body. Letting him see and understand what no mortal should. By turning his life into a RPG game?
1. Chapter 1

**Sorry for the long wait, my 'Computer' broke down. Which wouldn't be such a problem if I had had the 'Money' to fix it. I, however was too busy with 'Life'.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate stay night in any shape, way, or form. Please support the official release.  
**

_Speaking:_ "So, where is Keven anyway" Asked a big burly man to a small teen.

_Thoughts: Should I tell him the truth or not._Wondered the servant to himself.

_M__agic Spell/ Special stuff:_**"****Might as well tell the truth."**A emotionless voice said behind him.

A young boy walked through cursed flames. With each step the boy sacrificed a part of himself, his mind, his body, and eventually, his very soul. His drive for survival the only thing that kept him going. Step after step, he sacrificed. His precious memories of his friends and family, his emotions, and finally burning his very soul for the strength to go onwards, not even noticing the inefficiency in his mad stumbling.

Finally, only one thing was left to fuel his stumble. The very name of Shirou, the only thing that currently validated his existence. On reflex the body dropped itself, forcing itself to keep the barest shred of humanity. Shirou felt the fire wash over him in a moment. Not even allowing him to continue. Slowly he closed his eyes, desperately wishing for something to saving him, and remembering all the people he had passed that had wished for the same thing. What made him so special?

Nevertheless, something did hear his silent plea. Breaking away from the control of Angra Manyu a small portion of the Holy Grail was absorbed into the young boy. Hearing his plea, the Grail gave him strength, giving him the power to live, and even more the opportunity to gain more power. It warded off the fire, trying to consume him.

When Angra Manyu could fuel the destroying fire no more, and the rain had set in Shirou got back up, finding it considerably easier than before. Blankly, he started walking. He hadn't walked more than ten meters before a tall man ran up to him, smiling.

He knelt before Shirou smiling a huge smile. "Are you okay?" the man asked. Dumbly, Shirou nodded. The strange man's smile grew bigger. He held out his hand to Shirou, saying "Come with me." Still completely blank Shirou followed, oblivious to the dangers of following strange men. The grail shard, however, knew that Shirou was now safe. Thus it decided to start trying to grant it's master's wish.

To be as happy as that strange man.

...Grail Shard...

The problem was how to do it. It did not have the strength that it had possessed as the full Holy Grail. It could gather and create prana to give to Shirou, but that would be nigh useless when he grew to be a skilled magus. Fortunately, though it still could use all the abilities of the full Holy Grail, it simply was not able to give Shirou even close to enough power to make any significant difference to whatever method Shirou would decide on for his happiness.

Support his progression then. It could, instead of just giving him a large amount of power, boost his body, mind, and soul's ability to gain power. Make an exercise give maximum results. Then it could throw in it's own, small, left over power and activate his latent skills. Maybe even give him new ones!

Now, how would it run this system? It extended it's conciseness to the surrounding area, searching for an answer.

…...That's perfect...

**Random Sentence!: Not So Random Sentence!: I really need a beta for both of my stories *Wink Wink nudge nudge*. **


	2. Chapter 9082-9080

_Speaking:_ "Double time!" Yelled the worker.

_Thoughts:_ _What a slave driver!_ Thought the construction workers.

_Spell/Special stuff:_ **"We need to get ready for the shift!"** Shouted Xemness The Scholar.

When Shirou woke up the next day he found that his life had been turned into a game, not that he had any memories of before he found his life was a game. In any case, when he woke up Shirou would have been surprised by the screen in front of him reading **"You have slept ****12**** hours! Most of your Hp and Mp have been recovered."** As it was, Shirou just thought this was normal and accepted it.

Before he could figure out what to do with the screen, and before he could even start questioning how he could read the screen despite not knowing how to read, a new screen came up reading **"Would you like to take the tutorial? Yes or No"** Shirou, not knowing what else to do, pressed the **Yes** button.

Yet again a new screen came up. Pointing to three bars he hadn't noticed before. It read **"These three bars represent your Hp(Health) Mp(Magic points) and Stamina. These stats affect your day-to-day life and help you keep track of your important attributes."** That confused Shirou though he supposed that was because of his lack of memories.

Yet again another screen popped up, reading **"To continue say Menu."** Shirou, not having anything else to do, simply complied saying "**Menu**." A new screen came up this time, it read;

**Health 75/100**

**How much damage you can take before you pass out or die.**

**Magic 80/120***

**Str:1**

**Str, or Strength, affects how physically strong you are.**

**End:0**

**End:****End, or Endurance affects how much health you have, your stamina, and your natural defense.**

**Dex:0***

**Dex, or Dexterity, affects how fast and flexible you are.**

**Int:0**

**Int, or Intelligence, affects how fast you learn, how well you remember, and how well you control your magic. **

**Wis:0***

**Wis, or Wisdom, affects how well you make decisions, and how well you put together information.**

**Magic:3**

**Magic affects how much raw magic power you have, along with your affinity for magic. **

**Luck:1***

**Luck affects the world around you, and how much things go your way. Note: can only be improved from the status menu.**

Shirou felt rather bad about that. Most of his stats were 0, did that mean he had no strength? How was he suppose to do anything with no strength? How was he suppose to increase his stats? Also, what did ***** mean! as if to answer popped reading:

** Most of your stats are currently 0, but don't worry! Stats can be increased through use (Like reading to increase Intelligence), and leveling up. Notice, the * symbol however, that means that you have some form of status effect on you.** That made him really want to read a book to increase his Intelligence, or train any of his basic stats for that explained what the star thing was, but what could give him some sort of status effe-_ The flames I walked through must have taken away my stats somehow._ Shirou realized.

As Shirou thought this, yet another screen came up reading: **"Well now you know your stats, so why don't we check upon your talents and skills? To open the Skills Menu say Skills Menu."** The box read. Simply following whatever the boxes told him to do at this point, Shirou complied. "**Skills Menu**." Suddenly, a new screen replaced the Stats Menu in front of him.

** Skills Menu**

**Misc:**

** Element: Sword/Sword**

** Magic Resistance: 5 **

**Curse Resistance: 5**

**Unlimited Blade Works: Level 1 00.10%**

** At this level Unlimited Blade Works passively increases your ability to wield a sword and gives a 1% Exp increase to all sword skills. It stores any D- and under sword within.**

**Charisma: Level 1 00.00%**

** Saber: The class of the sword. Sabers boast the highest overall abilities and high magic resistance.**

** Innate sword skills: E+(12) You instinctually know how to wield a blade. **

** Lancer: The class of the lance. Lancers boast the highest agility but lowest luck. **

** Berserker: The class of the mad. Berserkers boast the highest strength but usually at the cost of the users sanity.**

** Mental Pollution: E(10) Due to the innate difference in the way you see reality, mental inference has decreased effect on you.**

**Rider: The class of the cavalry. This is the most unpredictable class, but always has high skill with mounts. **

** Archer: The class of the bow. This is the most independent class, specializes in long ranged combat.**

** Caster: The class of the mages. With vast arrays of magic spells this class is the most feared when it sets up it's workshop, normally physically weak.**

** Territory Creation: D+**

** Assassin: The class of the shadows. Though physically weak, Assassins specialize in the silent kill, and moving undetected.**

As Shirou read through all the information he silently decided not to get many Assassin or Berserker skills. After he finished however, Shirou thought of what he was suppose to do with this information. What sort of thing was he suppose to do? He supposed he would like to learn Caster, Saber and Archer skills, and wouldn't mind learning anything but Assassin and Berserker skills. He pondered this with mild confusion for several minutes before he was interrupted by another screen, reading **"By continually using your brain, your Intelligence has gone up by one!"** Clicking the **Continue **button at the bottom he decided to continue on.

Just as he decided to go on a new screen came up reading:** "Now that we've gotten to know you, why don't we open up the Quest Menu? The Quest Menu shows the task or jobs you have or can accept. To open the Quest Menu, simply say Quest Menu."** Having already decided to continue, Shirou complied, saying "**Quest Menu**." Like before, the Skills Menu closed itself and the Quest Menu opened, reading:

** Quest Menu**

** Active Quest:**

** Tutorial: Complete the tutorial and learn about the game.**

**Optional Quest:**

Shirou read the Quest Menu several times. Had there been any notice when he started the tutorial? Well, he guessed didn't really matter. So he simply accepted it as a part of reality he didn't get yet. Yet again, as if his response determined what the game did, a new screen popped up reading **"Now that you've seen all your stats and visited all the menus, why don't exit the tutorial? To exit the tutorial press the red X button at the top of the screen, or say exit."** Quickly finding the X button, Shirou pressed it and was completely unprepared when another screen popped up reading:** "Congratulations! You have finished Tutorial! Reword: 60 exp."** Shirou could feel something in his body stir a bit before settling down again.

_I guess exp is the stuff that levels me up._ Shirou thought._ I guess I can handle that._

**Random Sentence_: Why does everyone have such depressing usernames?_**


	3. Chapter: 1846-1843

_Speaking: _"That was too much." The paladin stated, lying on his back and looking up at the red-haired figure above him.

_Thinking: Not enough I fear._ The man thought.

_Spell\Special stuff:_ **"Recorded!"** Xemness shouted to himself, adding the paladin into Second Shift.

Not long after Shirou finished with the Tutorial, Shirou found that by examining the things around him, he got small amounts of Exp, it was also a fairly good way to pass the time. Nevertheless, he was still startled when a new screen came up while he was examining the things around him, guessing that they were probably used to help people heal. _Still, I should probably read it__._ Shirou decided. **"Congratulations! Through continuous examination of medical appliances you have learned the skill Medical Knowledge!"** Though Shirou didn't quite know what the skill did exactly, but he suddenly knew that he was almost fully healed, and that it should be safe for him to move around for a few minutes.

Quickly, Shirou decided to get up, not wanting to waste anymore time than necessary. Putting his feet on the cold floor, Shirou forced himself unto his feet. Before he could get even halfway up, however, he found himself not being able to lift himself up. To remedy this, Shirou used both of his hands to try to pull himself up by his headrest. Still, after but a few moments, Shirou found himself falling back down. Shirou decided to try again, knowing that his states would increase if he kept using them, making only logical for him to try to stand to increase his stats.

_Wait,_ Shirou wondered, _if have 1 strength and the average child has one strength, does that mean a average child can't stand?_ _That doesn't make sense._ Shirou realized.

Falling down again, Shirou was surprised to find a screen floating in front of him. Looking at it Shirou was surprised to find it reading **"Quest received! Tutorial (part II) Status effects and You. Start? {Yes}****, {****No.}"** _Didn't I just finish the tutorial?_ Shirou wondered. Shrugging, Shirou pushed the **Yes** button. A new screen came up reading: **"Right now you are under the status effect 'Angra Mainyu's curse'. This, like all other negative status effects, lowers your overall effectiveness. This particular curse lowers your magic power, Dexterity, Wisdom, Luck, and increases your weight threefold. That said, there are more than just negative status effects, there are also positive. For instance, Protective Aura increases your Magic Resistance and Physical Defense while you are under it."** That explained why he was having such a hard time walking.

Still, if lifting heavy things increased his strength, he saw no reason not to try to continue and try to increase his own. Even if this curse made him heavier, that just meant he had more to lift, right? Nodding to himself, Shirou saw the screen close itself, only to be replaced with another one a few moments later reading **"Different status effects do different things. For instance, Flame Aura passively increases the power of fire based attacks, and at high levels gives resistance to fire, while Gandr Curse is a mildly strong temporary sickness curse."** _So status effects can be incredibly useful or incredibly deadly._ Shirou concluded. Yet again the screen closed itself, only for another screen to take it's place, reading;

**"There are many types of status effects, some helpful some hurtful. Here are some categories that govern most status effects. **

**Passive: a status effect that is always working. Usually generated by the user.**

**Active: a status effect that is working only when activated. Usually stronger than passive.**

**Defensive: a status effect that protects or heals. Usually used to help those in need.**

**Innate: A status effect engraved unto your very being. Very hard to come across, and has massive power. Cannot be increased through normal means.**

**Learned: a status effect that is increased through the user's knowledge of an aspect. Weakens as the user forgets the skill.**

**Bodily: a status effect that can not be shared. Learned or gained by the user's body, also called 'muscle memory'.**

**Element: a unique category that tells only to what elemental affinity a status effect is. This tells the basic strengths and weaknesses of the effect has.**

** Next."**

_That was informative._ Shirou's mind stated dully. After making sure he memorized and knew the useful information on strange screen, Shirou pushed the **Next** button. This time Shirou was not surprised when a new screen came into existence in front of him._ Defiantly progress._ Shirou thought before reading the screen.

**"Remember status effects various attributes can change the outcome of almost anything, for better or for worse. That said, make sure to consider your status effects when deciding important action, and have fun living your life and completing all your goals.**

The screen closed itself after Shirou had read it, leaving Shirou to his thoughts. Shaking his head, Shirou decided to ponder it while while he worked on walking. Only briefly acknowledging that he had finished the quest and received 25 exp. **"By continuously using your brain, your Intelligence has gone up by one."**

** "By continuous strain your Strength has increased by one."**

** "By continuous struggle your Endurance has increased by one."**

Soon after Shirou got back to walking he found another problem. Namely, his stamina. After less than a minute of trying to walk he found himself panting and out of breath. He was fine after about five minutes, but overall, he got very little actual training, but he could already feel the benefits. At first, he had to use his hands and feet to even hold himself up, but now he could pace around the room, albeit with some trouble. He still had to break, of course, but with less effort and more stamina, they were already much further apart.

It was during one of these breaks when he saw two people walk into the room. "Now, you can wait, but don't try to wake him, and he should be out for quite a while." the stern voice of the man with a white coat explained to a man with a black coat. Both men stopped and stared at him. _Were they talking about me?_ Shirou briefly wondered in the second it took for the man with the white coat to start yelling.

"You should be in bed, young man!" The stern man's voice half commanded and half told Shirou. Shirou did not understand why. "I should?" He asked, he knew he should be getting back in bed soon, but he should be able to get in a few more minutes with his extra Endurance!

The man, it seemed, did not share this sentiment. "Yes!" he answered, in a exasperated voice, and marched to where Shirou sat and forcibly, though carefully, pushed Shirou down unto his hospital bed. Not seeing anyway to get out yet, Shirou complied and allowed himself to be pushed into laying position. After a while the man seemed satisfied. "Good, be 'careful, we don't want you to get even more injured." The man explained, "and as a doctor I can't approve of you moving around so much after the fire!" the newly dubbed 'doctor' explained. The doctor turned, muttering something Shirou couldn't catch under his breath.

_I guess he is going to help me heal too._ Shirou guessed. **"Through continuous examination of medical expertise, Medical Knowledge has gone up by one."** Suddenly, Shirou knew that the man in the white coat was a doctor, a person who helped people heal by performing surgeries and telling people what to do to heal properly. He also knew that the man's name wasn't doctor, but that he was a doctor and was using as a title to identify himself.

Finally, Shirou realized his mistake. This entire room was made to help people heal, to help him heal. Still, he didn't know why the man with the black coat was here. Now that he got a closer look at the man with the black coat, he knew it was the man that had saved him. Sadly, he did not know the man's name, in fact he was having trouble remembering what he himself was called.

Finally, the doctor spoke, "What is your name?" he asked. Shirou thought about it, looking up, as if to see if he would find the answer on the ceiling, suddenly, a screen he was sure wasn't there a second ago appeared. It read** "Shirou Level 1"** on it, surrounding the black letters with completely contrasting white screen. Looking, he noticed that both the doctor and the man with the black coat had a similar screen above their heads reading **"Doctor Level 3" **and **"Kiritsuge Level ?"** respectively. _What does the question mark mean?_ Shirou wondered. Quickly, he noticed why he hadn't seen the screen earlier, it seemed to become transparent, and see through when he wasn't looking directly at the screen.

The doctor sighed. "Honestly, you just need to sleep some more to make sure you are fully healed." the doctor explained. Shirou, not really understanding why, simply nodded. When he closed his eyes, however, he fell asleep almost instantly.

When Shirou woke up, he saw the man with the black coat waiting for him. Shirou turned towards him, not comprehending why he was there. Seeing, he was awake, the man with the black coat smiled, a smile of such happiness that Shirou could not help but feel jealous. Suddenly, he stopped smiling, "I'm sorry, but your parents are most likely dead." the man told him bluntly, "What you do now is entirely up to you. Right now you can wait to released from this hospital and go to an orphanage to eventually be adopted, or you can come with this stranger for an uncertain future." The man with the black coat explained.

_That's not quite right._ Shirou thought,_ This man saved me, so we've met before._ Unconsciously, Shirou wanted to understand why the man was so happy.

The man with the black coat was speaking again, "So, I ask you: will you accept this stranger as your father?" the man asked. Shirou didn't even need to consider, and as soon as he understood what the man was asking of him, he immediately nodded in response. Only noticing the screen that popped up after he nodded, it read **"Will you accept Kiritsuge Emiya as your father? Gives titles 'Son of the Magus Killer', and 'Emiya clan heir'. Unlocks title 'The Second Magus Killer'. {Yes}, {No}."** The **Yes** button was highlighted, indicating that it had already been chosen it. That screen closed itself and, once again, a new screen took it's place.

**"You are now the adopted son of Kiritsuge Emiya. Title 'Emiya clan heir' gained. Title 'Son of the Magus Killer' gained. Title 'The Second Magus Killer' unlocked."** The man in the black coat smiled that grateful smile again. The smile made Shirou sure it was worth the "I'll go fill out the paperwork." Kiritsuge suddenly announced, standing up Kiritsuge quickly rushed out of the room with that smile wide of his face. Shirou really wished to as happy as that man, Kiritsuge, his Father.

After a moment, an new screen came up, reading **"Quest received! Tutorial (part III) Names, Titles, and Jobs oh my! Start? {Yes}, {No}.** Shrugging, Shirou pushed the **Yes** button. **"Congratulations! You have revived a title. Titles may give a wide variety of special powers and/or abilities, ranging controlling time itself to growing flowers faster. Currently you have two titles, Emiya clan heir, and Son of the Magus Killer. Emiya clan heir boost Time Alter spells by 5, and Son of the Magus Killer boost Machinery by 2, Gun Handling by 2, and Time Alter by 1. Note that both titles boost your skills by 5 collective points. This is not the true strength of the title, but merely the current boost your level allows. That said, both skills will increase as your levels go up, until they reach their full effect. Eventually, you might be able to stack several titles, but for now you can only stack a collective 5 points. Keep this in mind, and good luck in Life, make sure to enjoy yourself and complete all your goals!"**

_Huh._ Shirou thought. He didn't know what a Magus was, but he really didn't like the word killer being in one of his titles. Nevertheless, he wasn't about turn down extra points.

Only then did Shirou close the screen. When the next screen came up, Shirou excitedly read it, it read **"Choose your title. Emiya clan heir, Son of the Magus Killer." **For now, Shirou chose Emiya clan heir, if just to find out what Time Alter is. **"Skills Menu."** Shirou said.

**Skils Menu**

**Misc:**

**Element: Sword, Sword**

**Magic Resistance: 5**

**Curse Resistance: 5**

**Unlimited Blade Works: Level 1 00.20%**

**At this level Unlimited Blade Works passive increases your ability to wield a sword and gives a 1% Exp increase to all sword skills. It stores and D- and under sword within.**

**Charisma: Level 1 00.00**

**Saber: The class of the sword. Sabers boast the highest overall abilities and high magic resistance.**

** Innate sword skills: E+(12) You instinctually know how to wield a blade. **

** Lancer: The class of the lance. Lancers boast the highest agility but lowest luck. **

** Berserker: The class of the mad. Berserkers boast the highest strength but usually at the cost of the users sanity.**

** Mental Pollution: E(10) Due to the innate difference in the way you see reality, mental inference has decreased effect on you.**

**Rider: The class of the cavalry. This is the most unpredictable class, but always has high skill with mounts. **

** Archer: The class of the bow. This is the most independent class, specializes in long ranged combat.**

** Caster: The class of the mages. With vast arrays of magic spells this class is the most feared when it sets up it's workshop, normally physically weak.**

**Time Alter: 5**

** Territory Creation: D+**

** Assassin: The class of the shadows. Though physically weak, Assassins specialize in the silent kill, and moving undetected.**

**Random Sentence: Yay! I have fans!**


	4. Chapter 264-260

_Speaking:_ Xemness the Scholar sat in a large dining room, filled lavishly with gold, silver and magical trinkets. Across from him sat a teenager. **"So?"**

_Thinking:_ Xemness the Scholar's eye twitched. **_Why me,_** he wondered to himself**_ why not one of my others?_** sighing he looked at the teen's hair.

_Special being/spell: __**Defiantly pink.**_ he thought. **"Look, for the last time, I will not be your familiar.** he tried to reason.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate Stay Night in any way, shape, or form. Within this part of the Multiverse.**

It had been a few weeks since that incident. Right now Shirou was helping construction workers with fix his house, not that his house was torn apart, but a few adjustments had to be made to live there for long. The kitchen, for instance, still needed to be fully geared up with a stove and cabinets. His new father, Kiritsugu, was sitting nearby. Though, Shirou couldn't tell if the expression on his face was happy or sad, he blamed that on his Mental Pollution skill though.

Speaking of his Skills Page, Shirou had gained several new abilities in the past weeks, through his constant efforts he was able to increase his Time Alter skill to a natural 5, That means he has ten with his Emiya clan heir! He also had gained the new skill Construction and leveled it up to 16, it was so much higher than his Time Alter skill, mostly because he could do it so much longer without feeling exhausted. Speaking of which, while he had been helping the construction workers his Strength Well, that and the daily quests he had received to help out.

Speaking of his daily quests, he was on one now. Currently he was toting around the workers tools and lifting some of the lighter objects. He felt sad he couldn't help when they needed to move around boards, or the time they had to carry in the oven, but he settled for helping as best he could. It was a good experience, everyday he would do the quest to help the construction workers, 25 exp if he hardly helped, 50 exp if he helped quite a bit, and 75 exp if he helped a lot. Not to mention that it would give him exp in his Construction skill, and that he learned while he did the quest.

He passed a box of tools to a large construction worker, taking his now unneeded tools and quickly giving those tools to another worker about to do the same type of job. Sighing, Shirou sat down beside his father. "You know that you don't need to help the workers, right?" His father asked. Shirou nodded. "I know," he said, "but I get this sense of accomplishment when I know that I helped them, though, it doesn't hurt that I learn a lot when I help them out either." Shirou stated. "Besides, I've heard that works builds character!" With these words Shirou stood up and continued on his quest to help the construction workers.

...Time skip...

It had been almost a full year since his father, Kiritsugu, had adopted him. Soon after he adopted Kiritsugu, he had reveled that he was a magus. Right then and there Shirou had gotten a new quest, in fact, this was the only quest he had or has ever gotten rewarding over 100 exp. With the combined motivation of both 250 exp and the promise of more magic skills, Shirou asked his father constantly to be taught magic by his father.

It had only been after a week that Shirou noticed the exp reward had gone up.

Shirou's constant attempts to convince his father to accept his as his pupil did give him enough experience to level up his Charisma skill to level ten, making it a low E rank ability. Today Shirou planned to try again to make his father accept him as a pupil. Though over the last year the exp reward of the quest had risen to 1525, Shirou had long decided that it would be better to learn magic under his father. So, no matter how tempted Shirou was to leave the quest until it would increase no more, Shirou tried to complete the quest as soon as possible.

The quest wasn't the only amazing thing Shirou had happen to him in the last year. About a month after Shirou had been adopted Shirou had met the ever energetic Taiga Fujimura. The cheerful young woman always carried around her favorite weapon of choice the Tora-shinai, a cursed shinia that sent it's user into a blood frenzy. Strangely, despite his dad telling him that cursed objects made people cling to them, Tiaga seemed to have no problem giving up the weapon to help when Shirou asked for it to train his kendo.

The other major change that happened to Shirou was his first level up. Not that it was his only level up for the full year, but it was an important milestone in Shirou's opinion. It had taken him a long time, but Shirou eventually decided to spend the five points on one Luck, two Magic, one Dexterity, and one Endurance. He really only put a point in Luck to find out what it did, and when he found it lowered the exp level up requirement from 2000 to 1900, and he could swear that it increased his skill gain, he decided he would get it again. He put two points into Magic because he wanted to learn magic, and more mana would help. Dexterity he only did because he had the lowest in his class, and it was the only skill he still had zero in. Lastly, he put his final point into Endurance, mostly because he didn't want to be sick.

Well, enough thinking, he was probably reviewing to not think about what he was about to do anyway.

Shirou came into the dining room with two plates of food, piled high with delicious food. Originally he had taken up cooking for a quest, but he found it relaxing and soon his cooking skill was so much higher than Kiritsugu's that he did it every night.

Fun fact; people are more willing negotiate when they're eating delicious food, especially when you provided them with it. Taiga wasn't here today, so it was the perfect day for Shirou to make his move. Unfortunately, though Shirou had turned the before-meetings into an art, he didn't know what would convince his father to teach him. Sadly, while Shirou had a Charisma level of ten, it only affected how persuasive his words were. In other words, unless he had an insanely high level Charisma, normal words wouldn't have the same effect as a well-done speech. It didn't give him better words for the situation yet.

So, Shirou's speech doesn't sound very well written down, and was only mildly effective when said.

Shirou straitened his back and looked straight at his father, doing his best to look him in the eye. Kiritsugu, noticing the change, looked at his adopted son. Exhaling, Shirou mentally prepared himself before launching his speech. "Father, I need you to teach me magic." Shirou stated. Kiritsugu sighed, having heard this before, and started on his counter-argument. When he looked up, however, he faltered. Seeing the complete serious expression on Shirou's face, he sighed. "Why do you need to learn Magecraft?" Kiritsugu asked.

Shirou's response was immediate. "Father, I want to be able to use magic to help people. You say that magic can't be used to help people, I say it can! If someone is trapped in a fire, fire magic can be used to save their lives by controlling the flame. If someone is going to be killed, then protection magic, or offensive magic could be used to save them! Even the simplest, smallest amounts of power could save many people!" Kiritsugu already had his argument ready, magic was dangerous, and to use magic was to walk alongside death in more ways than one.

Shirou knew what his dad was about to say, so ignoring the screen that had popped up on the edge of his vision, he continued before his father could reply. "You say magic is dangerous, so teach me how to use it safely! You say that mages walk alongside death, to teach me how to walk safely! Even if you don't, I will continue to try my hardest to save people!"

Kiritsugu was moved, despite to sub-par speech, and that it's very foundation was emotion, he saw himself in the words. He saw the conviction in his son's eyes, he heard how firm and sure his voice was. Finally, he knew what he would have to ask next, "Shirou," he asked, "why do you want to learn magecraft?" Shirou looked at his father questionably, "I want to use it to save people." he answered honestly, full of innocence. Kiritsugu sighed, he had no real choice, "Fine," he answered, "I'll train you in the ways of magecraft, but be warned, to walk the path of a mage is to walk aside death."

...Time Skip...

It had been six months since he had started training Shirou, and Kiritsugu could honestly say, his son learned magecraft at a acceptable rate. That's not to say that Shirou was normal when it came to magecraft, he showed the ability to learn any type of magecraft, much like a average one. He differed however, when Kiritsugeu had taught his projection, reinforcement, and when Kiritsugu showed him basic healing magic. He wanted to chalk it up as natural skill, but it would not have these effects under any circumstances he had come up with. Even if Shirou was an average one, it would not explain the strange traits of Shirou's prana, especially when assuming the effects the cursed flames must have had.

Kiritsugu sipped at his tea as he looked at the two combatants in front of him. His son Shirou, and his 'Big Sister' Taiga Fujimura. Though Taiga did not know it, Shirou was actually fighting her with a copy og her Toria-Shinai. Somehow Shirou had managed to replicate the curse inside the blade, and was using it to even his odds. Right now they were staring each other down. Right now it was an amazing tie between the two, they had decided that the next hit would be the final. From what Kiritsugu could tell, Tiaga was stronger and more precise with her movements, a strong attack, but Shirou was faster and was better when it came to tactics and spilt-second strategies.

That was something you couldn't say about many children.

Taiga charged forward, hoping to catch the young boy off guard with the ferocity of her attack. This, being her nature and the nature of the sword she wields, did not surprise Shirou, however, who took the opportunity to feint at her side. Taiga saw through the attack with time to dodge, but was unable to prepare for Shirou's next strike. Taiga took a step back, apparently trying to regain her balance, but Shirou was able to slip her shinia through her defense, striking her and ending the match.

Kiritsugu had to stifle a chuckle at their antics. While Taiga cried (presumably) fake tears, Shirou loudly proclaimed victory in his 'quest' to defeat her. Hording his victory over her he asked Taiga if he could get his reward, one bag of scrap metal, 1000 yen, and some uncooked crab legs. Honestly, he had no idea what Shirou would do with the bag of scraps, but he was quite sure that he would find the victory crab on the dinner table tonight. He watched as Shirou poked the air, mumbling to himself, and then a look of happy surprise come on his face. "I leveled up!" he happily exclaimed, pushing the air in front of him.

_Wait,_ Kiritsugu noticed,_ is his finger actually bending like it's touching something?_ Despite himself Kiritsugu found himself wondering the "Game" that Shirou kept mentioning wasn't an act. It would make sense, in a very messed up way, because it would explain Shirou's unnatural strength and Prana. It was a stupid idea, true, but it was an idea that Kiritsugu found strangely appealing, no matter how stupid the idea was. After a moment Kiritsugu dismissed the thought, Shirou's life couldn't possibly be some sort of game, could it?

...Time Skip...

_Finally!_ Shirou thought to himself, reading the screen in front of him. It read; **"Congratulations! Unlimited Blade Works has now leveled up to level 3!"** Despite himself, Shirou giggled excitedly. Unlimited Blade Works was his strongest skill, when he had leveled it up to level 2 he had found that his Innate Sword Skills had increased to 24, and he had gained the new skill Innate Archery Skills at 10 levels. Now, with this new level up Shirou had 36 Innate Sword Skills, 20 Innate Archery Skills, and 8 Innate Knife Skills.

Shirou was ashamed to admit that he giggled in glee when he saw this new level up.

Turning aside, Shirou found a different screen, reading; **"Congratulations! By leveling up Unlimited Blade works you have gained the ability to cast Unlimited Blade Works unto the world!"** Shirou didn't know what it meant by that, but suddenly he felt part of himself snap together. A part of himself he had never know was there, but instinctively knew was always a part of him. He felt the words bubble into his mind, always there, **"I am the bone of my sword,"** Suddenly he felt his very being work better. He felt his steps run smoother, he felt the prana he had purify itself, he felt his body gather mana smoother, and in higher amounts. He even thought he felt his body produce protein better!

Still, when he looked down at his prana bar, he knew he had to inactivate it. While he did gather more prana when he used the technique, it was not enough for him to use it for very long, especially with his already low prana from training his Tracing skill. Sighing, he turned off the skill, immediately wishing he could use it again.

Sighing again to get rid of the feeling of longing, Shirou made his way out from the shed he had set up and into the cool night air. He saw his father sitting peacefully, staring up at the night sky calmly, as he did often. Smiling, Shirou went to sit beside him, only to stop as, for the first time, Shirou saw Kiritsugu's level. **"Level 30, Magus Killer."**Shirou gasped in shock. Even Taiga's grandfather, Raiga Fujimura, was only level 15! _Wait, _Shirou wondered,_ why can I see Kiritsugu's level now if I couldn't before?_ Was it because of Unlimited Blade Works? Did that make him strong enough to see Kiritsugu's level? Shaking such thoughts out of his head, Shirou started again to walk towards his father, only to stop again when he saw Kiritsugu's Endurance was only 3.

Normally, Shirou would not think about it so much, but Kiritsugu should have at least 150 stat points, at minimum. However Kiritsugu's stats were incredibly low for such a high level. With 3 Endurance, 10 Magic, 25 Luck, 11 Strength, 16 Dexterity, and 45 Intelligence and Wisdom of 12. That was 122, so unless Kiritsugu didn't assign the points from his last seven levels, and only used half his points four levels ago, it wouldn't make any sense. Not only that, but 3 Endurance was incredibly low for an adult, even most children he knew had more! Looking again, Shirou saw the same * by every stat except Intelligence.

Shirou finished walking up to his father and sat next to him. "You know, you'll catch a cold if you stay out here for too long, old man." Shirou commented, he said it in a joking manner, he was really concerned about his father's health. Kiritsugu nodded silently, still staring up at the sky. Shirou looked at his father, "I'm serious, I don't know what I would do if you died." Shirou said honestly. Kiritsugu turned to see him, surprised when Shriou met his eyes. The question he asked stung him. "Dad," he asked, "why are you so weak?" Hoping to have misunderstood Kiritsugu tried to deny it, "What do you mean?" he asked, with a kind smile. Shirou leaned forward, righteous anger on his face, "Your an unhealthy old man, even though by all rights you should still be able take bullets, but instead you have the physical fitness of a small child! Dad, tell me, what is wrong with you!" Shirou demanded.

Kiritsugu sighed sadly, "Before I met you I was once part of... a big competition. After a long time I figured out the prize," Kiritsugu spat the word, "was not what we thought it was, after I won I refused the prize because of it's terrible nature. But... after I had refused it, it caused a great accident, and many people suffered because of it. It seemed that was not enough though, in that dreadful time I lost my wife, my daughter, and I was cursed." by the end of his speech, Shirou could hear the emotion in his father's voice, his mental strength barely keeping his voice from cracking. Shirou looked up at his father, nodding in respect. "Because of my failure, they took my daughter, Ilya, away from me." Kiritsugu's voice cracked as he spoke, his calm nature breaking into rugged gasps and silent sobs.

Shirou stood, inspired by his father's speech, and desperately wanting to help him, "Don't worry dad! I'll get Ilya back for you!" Shirou assured.

**"Quest received! Ilya quest line (part 1) Find and save Ilya****!"**

That promise, the solemn oath, changed Shirou's life.

**Skills Menu**

**Misc:**

**Element: Sword, Sword**

**Magic Resistance: 7**

**Curse Resistance: 6**

**Unlimited Blade Works: Level 3 00.07%**

**At this level Unlimited Blade Works passive increases your ability to wield a sword, knife, and achery and gives a 3% Exp increase to all sword skills, 2% Exp increase in all archery skills, and 1% Exp increase in all knife skills. It stores and C+ and under sword within. Can Trace any blade under E+ rank without rank down. Any Sword Traced over D rank is decreased by two ranks**

**Charisma: (E) Level 12 54.27 **

**Noble Air: Level 2 12.37**

**Cooking: Level 192 At this level, you know how to cook any meal at a average level. This level of skill would commonly be found in a three star restaurant.**

**Saber: The class of the sword. Sabers boast the highest overall abilities and high magic resistance.**

** Innate sword skills: C(36) You instinctively know how to wield a blade with a high level of skill. **

**Kendo: Level 96 At this level, you are a master at Kendo. This level of skill would commonly be found in Kendo teachers.**

** Lancer: The class of the lance. Lancers boast the highest agility but lowest luck. **

** Berserker: The class of the mad. Berserkers boast the highest strength but usually at the cost of the users sanity.**

** Mental Pollution: E(12) Due to the innate difference in the way you see reality, mental inference has decreased effect on you.**

**Rider: The class of the cavalry. This is the most unpredictable class, but always has high skill with mounts. **

** Archer: The class of the bow. This is the most independent class, specializes in long ranged combat.**

**Innate Archery Skills E+(20) You instinctively know how to use long ranged weaponry with an experienced level of skill.**

** Caster: The class of the mages. With vast arrays of magic spells this class is the most feared when it sets up it's workshop, normally physically weak.**

**Time Alter: Level 105 At this level, you triple your own perception of time, with feeling the weight of the time after you stop the time, half the perception of other living things, and speed up your by 1.05 without loss.**

**Reinforcement: Level 130. At this level you can multiply the existence of any object by 13. You can also safely multiply any part of your body by 7.5. (Skill effectiveness increases the more you know about the object.)**

**Basic Magecraft: (25) a set of very basic magic skills, at this level you can cast most basic skills easily.**

** Territory Creation: C(****30) At this level, creation of a workshop is possible under certain conditions.**

** Assassin: The class of the shadows. Though physically weak, Assassins specialize in the silent kill, and moving undetected.**

**Innate Knife Skills: E-(8) You instinctively know how to wield knives with a low-level of skill.**

**Random Sentence!: This skills page is almost completely useless!**


	5. Chapter 677-672

_Speaking:_ "Uwhaa!" The boy screamed, running away from the monsters, demons chasing him.

_Thinking: Please,_ the boy thought, _ someone save me!_

_Spells\Special Stuff: _Far above the little boy a figure smiled, **"Recorded!"**

It had been a couple of month since he had pledged to get Ilya back, and Shirou had been doing well. Because of his father's curse, Shirou had started learning healing magic to stem the curse inside his father's body. Apparently, he a few things to stem it's flow, but lacked anything that would have enough power to stop the curse. Over all, he had learned a lot of healing magic in the last couple of months, and along with his own independent work, he could now honestly say he could treat most illnesses better than some doctors. To be fair though, most doctors didn't have magic that could do almost anything with enough power.

Kiritsugu had taught him some basic healing magic, mostly the kind that heal cuts and bruises, but what Shirou really caught on to was healing curses. It was simple in theory, you shove your prana past their magic resistance, if they had any, and into the curse, then you simply unravel the curse from within. In practice, however, it was incredibly hard. The closest thing Shirou could relate to it was creating a computer program, but the magic resistance would take off certain, random, parts of the program every time that they met, so you had to apply the stream continuously while making sure the program doesn't trip over itself. Then you had to actually remove the curse, which was much like solving a puzzle, through murky water, and containing a small animal.

Alongside his magic training with is father, Shirou had been doing some independent studying. He had learned how to read quickly and then had read everything he could find on medicine. He had upgraded his medical knowledge skill to 22, and found out a lot about the human body. He found things like the skeletal system that helps support the body, to ribosomes within each cell. According to the description of the skill, he had about as much medical knowledge as most high school students, alongside some extra skills, like first aid, and CPR.

Shirou was sure that the two of these together would somehow help him save Kiritsugu, but for now they were just skills used to avoid getting sick and keeping up physical fitness. It would help him keep Kiritsugu's health from getting worse, but wouldn't make it better. Still, Shirou was sure he would be able to cure Kiritsugu, he even got a new quest from it **Cure The Curse**. Apparently, Kiritsugu had the same curse he did when he came out of the fire, but for some reason he hadn't been cured from it. Personally, Shirou had no idea why he hadn't recovered, but he knew it was getting worse, and if he wasn't careful, his father might die.

Of course, just because Shirou had started learning to heal didn't mean he was slacking off anywhere else. In his other magic studies he had progressed well, especially his reinforcement and projecting, but they had always come easier. His father had started to teach him both basic battle magic and how to create boundary fields. He hadn't gotten far in either, he could barely keep a fireball burning, and his boundary fields could barely keep from falling in on itself, but he had made significant progress nonetheless.

He had even been able to make a small boundary field around the shed absorb enough mana to keep a constant projection of Toria-shinia. When Kiritsugu had noted how much it looked like he was setting up a workshop Shirou had gained yet another quest called **Setting up shop**. He hadn't quite been able to complete it, as he needed to set up security fields, and a few points to map into the boundary field around the place, but overall he had done alright.

Today, however, Kiritsugu had something else in mind. Shirou stood in front of him, ready to start his magical practice, when Kiritsugu waved him off. "Today you won't be learning magic, Shirou." Seeing his confused face Kiritsugu explained. "Today you will be learning practical uses of magic in machinery, guns, bombs, cars, even computers." Kiritsugu stated. So the lesson went, Shirou listened dutifully as his father explained how magecraft and science mixed, and how they worked together, and the benefits of using of both instead of one or the other. Computers faster than they should be, bombs larger, cars faster and many more great examples of magic and science mixing together.

That day changed Shirou's life. It also gave him ten mechanic levels, and five Magitek level, but that's not the point.

...Time skip...

It had now been a full year since Shirou had been training with Kiritsugu, and he was showing mild progress. He had been able to start to make lasting projections, if only for two hours before they disappeared. Combined with his improving reinforcement he was slowly becoming quite a powerful mage.

That's exactly what Kiritsugu feared. His son was becoming quite powerful, and if he was ranked in magus scales, one through one-hundred. One being a normal person with no magic circuits and one-hundred being a true magic user, Shirou would measure about fifty. Given that Kiritsugu had measured him to be a thirty a few months ago, was a significant improvement. Kiritsugu knew that Shirou would go far in both the magic and the normal sides of life. In short, Shirou was a genius with fantastic magecraft abilities.

In Shirou's classes he was considered a remodel, perfect grades, great attitude, the peak of physical fitness, and the list goes on. Shirou didn't even seem to notice the power he had on his classmates, even his teacher! Despite being in the curriculum for less than a year, and having no memories before the fire, Shirou had curb stomped his classmates. The children in his classroom looked up to Shirou, as unlikely as that is to be, and hailed him greatly, listening to everything he says. The only one that could even be compared would be Rin Tohsaka, the Second Owner of the city.

His magic ability was even worse. Shirou was a natural at Projection, his new method Tracing was able to copy magical properties, though at a much larger amount of prana, but that was solved since his natural output of prana was incredibly high, already the level of a trained magus. He was skilled in almost everything Kiritsugu had taught him, from boundary fields, to carving enchantments, and especially Reinforcement. Combined with being a Average One, Shirou Emyia was a natural at the arts of magecraft.

And that's what made Kiritsugu worry.

The Clocktower had a very bad tendency to dissect people who had unexplained abnormal powers and growth that couldn't be explained easily. When Kiritsugu died, he was worried that Shirou would have no defense against the clock tower. At the same time, Kiritsugu recognized the potential Shirou had. It had taken several months, but he had finally figured out why Shirou was so bad when learning a skill and good after learning the skill, Shirou could do any spell just by knowing what it does. Because of this, Kiritsugu had instituted a new rule to his magecraft training, reading the entire section. It sounded silly, but Shirou was a genius, capable of using spells without knowing how they work, and in able for him to practice properly he needed to learn all about the spell. It saved him both time and Prana.

It also gave Kiritsugu time to do something very important, try to rescue his daughter. He hadn't been gone long, he had hopped he could break in easily, so he had only booked single week in Germany. Unfortunately, as he had expected, the Einzbern had activated the bounded field around the mansion. He couldn't get through without years of preparation, even if he was as strong as he was before. As it was, it would take longer than he could possibly live with out using magic, if he was to use magic.

Shacking his head, Kiritsugu thought back to the matter at hand, now wasn't the time to get saddened by his missing daughter, he could do that later.

What really worried Kiritsugu though, was how Shirou wanted to become a hero. He wanted to kill Dead Apostle's until he was recognized as undefeatable. That was dangerous by itself, but what scared him was the next part of Shirou's plan, because then Shirou planned to reveal magic to the whole world.

...Time Skip...

It had been nearly three years since Kiritsugu had taken to training Shirou. In that time Shirou had taken to protecting people on a lower scale, while he wasn't able to stop Dead Apostle's, or even stop bank robberies, he had started helping bullied children. Why he had just returned from helping a young purple haired girl. He had gotten a few bruises, mostly because he didn't use magic, but he had saved the girl, and that was all that mattered.

His training had been slowing down recently, and Shirou expected it was because of his level. When Shirou was at level one, getting a skill over fifty was a major problem, but at level five, a level fifty skill was one of his weak skills. Now though, a few days of part-time practice could easily get a skill to level one-hundred. Still, even now he would have to try very hard to get one of his skills to that above the average magus.

Sighing, Shirou looked back down to his latest project, making the bounded field around his workshop charge his projections. It wasn't that hard in theory, he just needed something to turn the captured mana into the same type of prana he used to make the weapon. From there he just needed to make sure the weapon accepted the mana as his prana. Right now he needed a conduit for the mana to act through. There were a few things he could use, blood, mystic codes, and some... other things he didn't want to mention. Right now, the only thing he had was blood.

The only real problem with that was that the blood needed to be kept relatively fresh, meaning he would have to keep a healing spell in the bounded field, meaning he would have to lower the mana available to the charging sword. Unfortunately, Shirou did not have the skill to create a bounded field with a centralized healing spell around the blood, nor did he have the skill with healing spells to reduce the cost of the spell to take little enough for the projection to actually gather prana.

Sighing Shriou started on the most effective way to fix the problem, and slowly started taking down the current bounded field, fully intent on building a new one to fit his current purpose.

...Time Skip...

It had been five years since Kiritsugu had started training Shirou, and Kiritsugu finally knew he was about to kick the bucket. He sighed, his failures briefly flashing through his head, and walked to his porch. Sitting down quietly, he watched Shirou work on his latest project, making his 'broken' projections stable. Though the theory behind the 'broken' state was that it was flooded with too much prana, Kiritsugu honestly believed Shirou could make it work. How he would, that was another problem entirely.

Shirou had come far in the ways of magecraft, and Kiritsugu was certain that he was leaving everything in capable hands. Eventually, though not today, Shirou would save his precious daughter Ilya. It was sad that wouldn't happen until after he had died, but he shouldn't have expected otherwise. Still, his death would be much happier than he had always hoped. At his home, with his son, looking at the stars peacefully.

Kititsugu smiled as he saw Shirou carry some pans and metal pipes to his workshop. "Shirou." he called softly, not able to yell fully. Shirou turned around quietly, and put down the things he was carrying, he seemed slightly sad for some reason. "Shirou, do you remember your dream of becoming a hero?" Kiritsugu asked. Shirou nodded. "When I was little, I wanted to be a hero." Kiritsugu explained, looking up at the stars peacefully. "You wanted to be a hero?" Shirou asked. Kiritsugu felt a touch of emotion, love, when he heard that "Yeah. It's unfortunate, but being a hero is a limited-time thing, and when you grown up, it gets hard to call yourself one. I should have realized that earlier."

Shirou nodded in understanding, "I see. But, Dad, you are a hero." The statement caught Kiritsugu off guard. "I know what you mean, But Dad, even if you aren't a hero to anyone else, you are still a hero to me." It took Kiritsugu, the Magus Killer, a moment to process that. But after he did, he found himself chuckling, "True." Kiritsugu said, mirth showing in his eyes. "Still," Shirou continued, "I'll become a hero in your place! Since your an adult now, you can't do it. But I can. Leave it to me. All of your dreams."

Kiritsugu finally focused on one celestial body, "Ah, the moon is really nice tonight."

Thinking back, a single question echoed in Kiritsugu's mind, a memory from so long ago. _What do you want to when you grow up?_ Shirley had asked him so long ago. Finally, Kiritsugu's had an answer, far, far too late _I want to be a hero._

Shirou felt tears start to fall, descending down his checks and falling into the ground as he watched his father's health go down the final ten numbers. When his father closed his eyes Shirou jumped to him, his strongest healing spell fully powered up to try to save his father. Even with the spell at full power, it could not heal the curse. Finally, after a slow decent Shirou saw Kiritsugu's health empty **0** and finally **-1**.

**"I want to be a hero"** Crying, Shirou stared at the ethereal figure of his father leaning over and smiling calmly before fading out of existence.

**" Kiritsugu, father of Shirou, has died."**

**"Through knowledge of raising and controlling the dead, you have gained skill Necromancy!"**

**Random sentence!: Merry Honnaca to all and to all a good Fourth of July!**


	6. Chapter 676-670

_Talking:_ **"Today we have my dear alternate, Xemness the Scho-are you writing this down?"** asked Xemness the Author.

_Thinking: The Eternal King's alternate is this guy?_ wondered a man in the crowd.

_Special Stuff/Magic spell:_ **"Yes, I found I need to work on my first person narrative."** He explained, ignoring the sweat-drops of the audience.

Shirou had just returned from his fathers funeral, the death still fresh in his mind. The game had given him a lot of exp recently, and since he had distracted himself with training, he had almost completed yet another level up, which would raise him to level 20, giving him enough prana to cast some of his bigger traces strongest weapon, Tora-Shinai. In his attempt to train off his worries, Shirou had found exactly what he needed to do in order to 'fix' his broken traces. In short, he just had to change the weapon, being broken made the weapon become unstable or change shapes and then become unstable, and by forcing it into something stable, he fixed the broken projection.

Still, despite his efforts, Shirou could not get the death of his father out of his head, besides, why would he want to? His father had shaped him in a way Shirou was sure would affect him for many years to come, so Shirou would not let himself forget about his father. Still, he needed to dull the pain, and, while time would eventually, he needed something immediate. For that reason, Shirou had taken up a new quest, a self made one, clearing the park that was still affected by the cursed fire. Besides, it was turning into a wives' tale anyway, and people were already suspecting a curse being on the area.

For now, he wasn't able to clear more than a foot, in fact a little less, each session. Since a session could only be done about once a week, the park would take a very long time to cleanse. Still, the quest already offered a massive 5000 exp, and would probably grow with time, so it would be well worth the effort. Already he had gotten the skill Gaia's blessing, which passively increased his luck while on earth. Sadly, it seemed the only way to level that up was to cleanse more of the cursed ground, but it was useful.

Sighing, Shirou slid to the floor and lay there for a second, mourning the loss of his father figure. A second later, however, he stood back up, dusting off dust that was never there. "I can't rest yet. I have improve the boundary field around the house, and my workshop, finish up my experiments, finish my new quest, and do today's practice." he sighed. Staring up at the almost undetectable boundary field around the house he could only see because he was the new owner. _Speaking of which._

Opening up his Quest Menu with a quick word, Shirou turned to his newest quest, labeled **Finished**. **Attend Kiritsugu's funeral**. Ignoring the wave of pain that came with the reminder of his father's death, Shirou clicked on the quest. Seeing the details he had already read had not updated, Shirou scrolled to the bottom, clicking the **Okay** button, and receiving his rewards.

**"Congratulations! You have finished Attend Kiritsugu's funeral! Passage Kiritsugu's Will unlocked! Title Magus Killer unlocked! Title Emiya Clan Head unlocked! ****Item Magus Killer unlocked! Item Avalon unlocked! Item Holy Sword unlocked! Emyia Household Ownership gained!"**

Accepting his reward, Shirou looked at his new items. Magus Killer, the item, was a sword that ignored lower level magecraft, and lowered higher level magecraft by it's maximum capacity. Since one look was all Shirou needed to store it in Unlimited Blade Works, Shirou was sure he would never use the actual sword. It was a nice memento of his father, and he was sure it would help him a lot in fights with mages, but the actual sword would probably be hung up on a wall, never seeing true battle.

The Holy Sword was the same way. The sword added a minor Holy element to his attacks with the sword, it wasn't strong, but with his strength, could be quite deadly. The ability to project the sword was much more useful than the actual blade, not only because he could have multiple, but because the low cost allowed him to break the sword, then fix it again. The actual sword may see some battle, but the projections in Unlimited Blade Works would be much more useful.

Not wanting to mess up the boundary field his father had made, Shirou moves back to his workshop. Starting a small boundary field around my work table, and tried to claim the area under it, trying to put it under him. It took a lot of mana, almost 300. 300, which by far was more than any technique he had ever used. It was almost half his mana, it cost 6 points in Magic! That's over a full level!

Still, the message that popped up made him think, perhaps, it was well worth the cost.**"A new skill has been created by a special action. Would you like to name the skill?"** Shirou raised an eye at the screen. While he did guess that he could create a new skill and name it, he had never gotten one before, it was a new experience. Pushing **Yes** Shirou did not expect the skill to already be half named.

**"Gate of _**

** Open wide, Gate of _, and let the world see your bountiful treasure!**

**Let's the user summon anything he or she owns from anywhere. Passively increases Charisma. Costs 60 mana.**

Seeing the high cost, Shirou pondered the usefulness of the skill. It seemed to be completely useless for now. Even his highest costing projection, Magus Killer, only cost about 40. Still, apparently this ability ranked as high, maybe a bit higher than his Unlimited Blade Works. He could see why, it would always cost 60 mana to take something out, whether it was a pencil, a paperclip, or a priceless artifact. It would also let him always be prepared, even if he couldn't project anything, which normally would have stopped his main method of combat. The cost would probably go down when he leveled it up anyway.

Eventually, Shirou decided to simply put **The Emiya Household** as the name, and was surprised to see he could change it at any time.

Accepting the new skill, and marking it on his mental list of things to do, Shirou turned back to his current project. **"Kill!"** yelled a voice behind him. Turning around, Shirou saw a new figure, a suit of black and crimson armor holding his fixed broken Tora-Shinai. In fact, above the armored figure's head clearly read **"Tora-Shinia, Level 10."** _Ohh. That's bad._ Shirou realized.

Far away, Gilgamesh smirked. _Perhaps there is hope for this era yet._

...Time Skip...

Walking down the hall one day, a jewel lying on the ground caught Shirou's eye. Deciding to return it, Shirou bent down and picked up the thing. As he was reaching for it, however, he felt a wave of water magic pass over him. Instantly alert, Shirou examined the air around him carefully for the source. Quickly, he found the source to be the very crystal in front of him.

A quick check with Unlimited Blade Works showed that it was, indeed, a magic weapon. Specifically, one made by Tohsaka Rin, for practice in her magecraft. It was fairly well made, but it only had the destructive power of maybe one of his broken projections, a low-level one at that. Still, just downloading it into his Unlimited Blade Works granted him two new skills, **Enchanting** and** Jewel Magecraft**. Both were functioned around forcing, or coercing, magical energy into an object, in this case, the jewel in front of him.

Being out in public, and collecting stares by the people around him, Shirou picked up the gem, deliberately showing it to the people around him and walked off to find Tohsaka. Noticing the new quest **"Return what was lost"** appear in front of him._ Honestly, it always uses cool names for small things. Does it think about naming quests all day?_ Shirou couldn't help himself but wonder.

Walking to his class, Shirou couldn't help but wonder how he was to return the jewel. _What am I suppose to say, 'Hey! I saw you drop this.' or something. _Sighing, Shirou worried all day.

Finally, when school had let out, Shirou returned the jewel. The event had no real problems, though Shirou was certain that Rin was staring at him when he walked away.

...Time Skip...

_Finally!_ Shirou thought excitedly. A few months ago he had started researching Avalon, and had quickly developed a interest in Arthurian legend. A few days into his research, however, he had found Merlin and Morgana. While studying the techniques that they used, Shirou had quickly found out that both of them often used potions. This, was a major flaw in Shirou's abilities. Even in games, often the thing that separated bosses and heroes were potions.

Health and Mana potions were something he completely lacked. In fact, he didn't even have a regeneration potion.

It left a imbalance that he could easily get rid of. For most of the ingredients for basic potions his dad had left were actually fairly easy to get. Since he had a increase on gardens from his Cleaning skill, it wouldn't be hard at all growing the things that actually were hard to get ahold of.

This line of thinking caused Shirou to get a new Gardening skill, and a Brewing skill.

...Time Skip...

It had been several years since Kiritsugu had died, and, though thinking about the ordeal did give him some pain, Shirou believed himself largely over the death of his father. It still occasionally bothered him, but not too much.

Right now, Shirou stood in front of the gem he had storing the power of his workshop. He had, begrudgingly, accepted that Jewel Magecraft was a better then his own projections. He still had a three small pillars on the side, to power his projections that take power from the system, but overall, it was alright. Admittingly, his workshop did not look good, spare mechanic parts on one side, with a large pillar in the middle, and three smaller pillars on the side holding up projected swords.

The fact that it was also part of the defense system was not relevant.

Shirou sighed. He hadn't worked much on Enchanting, or Jewel Magecraft, but they gathered quite a bit of magical energy. In fact, the magic system he used had quite a few skills like that. Shirou was not proficient with magic circles, but had needed to draw one for every pillar he had built, and to the potion brewer on the table filled with quite a recreants, all scattered around it.

The uncleanliness of the room bothered Shirou. As someone who knew the relaxing emptiness on cleaning, Shirou felt the near constant need to clean his workshop. The real problem, however, wasn't the desire, it was the space. Right now each and everything in his workshop had a designated area, but not a designated spot, and he had no real way of separating things. He couldn't just put things into stacks, because they would mix, and it would look even worse.

He could probably put everything into shelves, but he didn't have enough actual materials to make that worthwhile yet. He could, of course, slow down his production of potions, gathering up a stockpile of potion ingredients to make potions on the fly. He really didn't want to do that though, as he had just been able to get a decent regeneration potion, at 1% health every hour, and did not want to slow down anytime soon.

Sadly, Shirou couldn't think of any natural solutions. Without some great source of magic. _That's it! By redoing the boundary field around my workshop, I could expand it into a sphere around the workshop, it would allow me more room, both underground a few feet and around the actual workshop. In the space around I could put a small garden, and increase the radius of the healing spell from the workshop and vastly increase the production of my ingredients!_

**"Through planning and making good decisions based on the skills you have, you have gained a point in Wisdom."** _Huh, one of those hasn't happened in a while._

...Time Skip...

Today was the day.

Shirou, now 15, stood on a platform in the middle of a large crowd of his fellow students, his best friend, Issei, sitting behind him. As sub-captain of the Archery and Kendo club, Shirou was the first candidate for class president. Issei was the second, and their current voters measured about the same. Bracing himself, the master of Zen gathered his words.

"Brothers, Sisters, fellow classmates of Homurahara Gakuen! Today you have all gathered here to decide between two candidates to lead you. Myself, and my great friend Issei. Both of us wish to help you, all of you, and I can not say I am any better of a leader than he is. I will say, however, that I will do my utmost to help each of you. Together, we shall make this the best! With your help, I shall try my best to lead us to be the best school we can possibly be! We at Homurahara Gakuen can lead the world!" Shirou shouted excitedly.

Shirou won that day, though nobody could ever distinguish if it was because of his natural charisma or how honest his words were. Shirou also got a level in Charisma, and leveled up to a 25, but that wasn't as good as his newest skill.

**"Do to idolized by many people, you have gained the skill Divinity.**

** Divinity: Level 1 03.93%**

** At this level, all stats are sightly increased, along with mana purity."**

...Time Skip..

Today, Shirou had done a small quest for a young girl named Sakura. She was the sister of his friend Shinji, and they had brought her work to their house, Shirou helping because Shinji asked. When he had gotten to the property, Shirou had been notified that he was under the effect of a boundary field. _I guess the Matou are mages then._ Shirou guessed.

The boundary field was mostly negated by his friendship with Shinji. Other than that, he seemed to have been invited in, which was weird considering that he was sure that he wasn't directly invited in.

When the two entered the castle, they were greeted by Shinji's grandfather. Since this was their first time meeting each other, Shirou tried to be polite, but was stopped when he looked over the old man's head he saw **"Zouken Matou, Level ?"** Instantly Shirou was on guard, he couldn't see this man's level! This had only happened once, and it made Shirou really suspicious.

Silently, Shirou decided to keep an eye on the old man's personality.

When the two actually got to Sakura, Shirou was surprised again, **"Sakura 'Matou', Level 12."** This was odd for two reasons, for one, Shirou could not see her mana bar, for two, level twelve was a very high level, perhaps even capable of giving him trouble. This also confirmed something to Shirou, the Matou were, indeed, a family of Magi.

_Wait,_ Shirou wondered,_ if the Matou are a family of magi, why does Shinji not have his mana unlocked, and if they are all such high levels, why is Shinji's only level three? Does Shinji not have any magic circuits!_ A quick scan told Shirou that Shinji actually didn't have any magic circuits. Silently, Shirou decided to see if he could give his friend any.

Course set, Shirou decided that as soon as he got home he would try to figure out how he could get his friend a magic circuit.

**"New Quest! Help your friend unlock magic and rid him of the residue hatred for his sister!"**_ Wait what?_

**"Due to creating emotional bonds with Sakura Matou you have gained the skills Zen, Matou Magecraft, and Destruction Magic."**

...Time Skip...

Today was fairly normal day, Shirou, now 16, was woke up by Sakura, his underclassmen, because he had been up late fixing a space heater in his workshop. The bottom portion, where he didn't keep magical objects. He then did some light practice in the dojo, a few kenjutsu katas at about thirty miles per minute, did some laundry, and had a normal breakfast with Sakura and Taiga, pushing out the latter so she could grade their last test, washed the dishes, and walked to school with Sakura, normal things.

When he got to school, Shirou was pulled over by his vice-president Issei, apparently some of the heaters for the school had broken down and he wanted to see if Shirou could fix them. As it turned out, the problem was simple to fix. A bit of electric tape, a single, unnoticeable, rune in the metal, a bit of screw tightening, and it was working good as new.

After some small talk with Issei, Shirou went to his homeroom. He then had normal classes for the rest of the day. It was at lunch something out of ordinary happened.

While sitting at the lunch table, in the center of the room, poetically surrounded by every group in the school, large or small, in large circle around him, Shirou received a strange new message. **"Due to draining massive amounts of magical energy, all experience gains are boosted by 20%. Health and Mana regeneration bosssted by 10%"** To say Shirou was surprised would be a understatement. _What could cause a boost that massive,_ Shirou wondered, a_nd what massive energy source am I draining?_

Thinking about it, there wasn't any real source of magical energy he could be draining. Though, there had been a few gas leaks going around Shinto, could that be him? _No, you need to prepare for something like that, not just wish it._ It left questions in Shirou's mind, questions he had no answer to. _I'd better prepare, something big is going to happen._

...Time Skip...

It had been a month since that strange day, and Shirou had been training hard. He had made record time in gaining a level up, getting eight thousand exp in just over one month. Finally, Shirou found what he was drawing mana from. All thanks to a new message. **"You have been allowed to fight in the Fifth Holy Grail War. Rewards: 20000 exp, one True Wish, Elemental Contract. Y/N?**

...Grail Shard...

The Grail Shard had long since grown true sentience long ago, around it's master's tenth level, when he had increased his Luck enough to allow for such a thing. Truly, it wished it's master to achieve his dreams, and become a hero to all the world. In fact, it had spent all of three months estimating steps and time for his dream to come true. Then, it had suddenly realized, the demon that had corrupted it's full self had sped up the Full Grail, making it come almost fifty years early.

It had tried to stop the war, for it was corrupted, but the demon had more power. It was only able to hold the war by a single month. Now, the Full Grail had chosen one hundred participants for the fifth war, one of which was it's own master, and was currently in the process of deciding which ones to allow. It did not want it's master involved in this, it was far too dangerous, even with it's sway with the grail.

Still, it currently had the option, and it could make it's master's wish true, if no one else's. Still, it was nothing but magic item, in a sense, another enchanted object, just one more powerful than most. It was up to it's master to decide, so, regrettably, the Grail Shard told it's master of the event, hoping he would decline it.

It was only obvious that Shirou chose to accept.

**Author's note: I'm actually thinking of starting a challenge one-shot story, just so the viewers can see the plots I turn down for my actual stories.**

**Random Sentence!: Someone call me for some... Interesting _plots_.**


	7. Chapter 4780-4773

_Speaking:_ Xemness The Scholar scratched his head absently, **"Sorry for that, needed to share something for the** **Ulciscere derelictorum."**

_Thinking:_ **_Did I just say that out loud?_** he wondered. A small, fluffy floating sheep leaped into his lap. "I was told to tell you 'It is time." it said in a happy voice

_Magical Spells: _ Xemness the Scholar paled. **"Dimension Door!"**

Shirou thought he was ready for whatever this Holy Grail War could throw at him. Using the increases being in the war gave him, he had managed to get almost ten thousand exp in the last month. Which, considering that he had had this power for ten years, and he was only level 30, was a great improvement. Still, even with all the extra experience and skills, Shirou did not think he could win this fight.

Well, in order to understand his current situation, one would have to go back to the beginning of the day. Today, he had woken up in his bed, for once, after a long night of fixing Mr. Fujimura's favorite motorcycle. Long ago, he had done some basic runecraft in order for it to go faster than it was physically able, and Mr. Fujimura had preferred for him to work on the bike ever since, even paying him fairly well. The bike had had some wiring and engine problems, it didn't take long at all, but he had only remembered to do it after he finished his experimenting.

The results of the experiment, were powerful, as he was now able to create a Holy Sword guardian, and a Magus Killer guardian. As well as the 'broken' 'fixed' 'broken' Tora-Shinai. He was also able to figure out how to use the history of the sword and turn it into armor, and last night's experiments had been able to stabilize it, giving the shinai a level 15 body, which was slightly stronger than Taiga's. Though it increased the prana needed to keep the sword up, and the sword still had trouble doing anything that doesn't require hitting things with a sword.

Still, the two Tora-Shinai made for a good trump card.

Also, about a week into the month, a second Tora-Shinai gained sentience. So far, he was able to alleviate their bloodlust slightly by making them fight each other before he went to bed each day. The two were evenly matched, and were making remarkable progress each day. Already, just holding the swords gave him extra skill points in Kenjutsu and Kendo. The two gave him so much bloodlust they had increased his Curse Resistance skill to 10, twice what he had gained over the last ten years of their life.

Ironically, all these series of experiments had been completed last night. Meaning that all the current preparations, were barely completed. A cliche from many games.

Still, the extra sword and the strength they gave would help him, if only a small portion.

All these things made Shirou believe he was ready for the War, it wasn't like he could have known, but he was very, very wrong.

The actual day had been fine, he had gone to class, like normal, had some nice conversation, talked to Tosaka, even did some quests during lunch.

After he had woken up early, Shirou started on his light training, making sure to use his reinforcement to speed everything up, and grind out his skills, and then started breakfast. Sakura came in, and the two worked together to make a feast worthy of a king. None of that was unusual, and made him believe that today would be like any other.

A short walk to school, a simple farewell to Sakura, and a walk to homeroom was enough to assure him that, perhaps he had been freaking out over nothing. He decided to keep his guard up for a few more days, but it did seem like this 'Holy Grail War' didn't affect him. Because of the relief, Shirou opted to do some quests today, instead of actually preparing himself for the worse. The exp he got was almost stunning, but he did it more for the unnatural calm he got when he helped somebody. Though, admittingly, archery and cleaning also gave it.

He had a good day, getting almost one hundred exp over the course of lunch, and a few hour-long quests, two of which were courtesy of Shinji. He was also helping out, but in the main building instead of... all the clubs. _Actually,_ Shirou considered,_ I think I know where my mistake was._

Regardless, Shinji had finished before he had, by about half an hour, and asked if he should help with the rest. Shirou had waved him off, "A few more minutes of work never hurt anybody." he had laughed. Now, he was really regretting that decision.

After he had finished with the archery club room, the last room he had to do for the night, Shirou was examining his work. In the final stages of making sure the room was completely clean, however, he heard a loud boom, not unlike a small explosion.

Like a fool, Shirou had rushed to check, "Hey, what's going on?" he asked, before seeing their levels.** "Servant Archer, 'A Nameless Archer' Level 45." "Servant Lancer, 'Servant Lancer' Level 54."** Immediately, Shirou knew he couldn't stop them, or, hurt them for that matter. Since the titles 'A Nameless Archer' and 'Servant Lancer' tripled their power, which was already massive, Shirou wasn't sure he could really keep them at bay, much less keep both of them apart long enough to get them to stop fighting.

For Shirou, his next thought described his situation perfectly, _This was a bad idea._ Still, perhaps he could make them think he could keep them apart. Before anything could happen, a new screen came into view, **"Due to ?, Tracing, Unlimited Blade Works, and Reinforcement exp gains are boosted by 10000%."** _Eh?_

Servant Lancer interrupted any further thoughts, "Oi! Don't interrupt kid!" he yelled. Shirou, ignoring all sense of reason, refused. "I'm sorry, but I mustn't let you fight here. You could seriously destroy parts of the school!" Shirou argued.

The three were stunned, Archer, because he didn't remember this, Lancer, because he wasn't expecting this, and Rin, because she didn't think Shirou Emiya, the class president she had voted on, was insane.

After a few seconds though, Lancer smiled. "Now that you've seen us, you have to die!" he shouted, running at Shirou extremely fast, faster than he could move, even at top speed.

The distance was nearly ten feet though, so Shirou had time to activate Gate of The Emiya Household, quickly grabbing one of the two Tora-Shinia, he pulled it out as fast as he could, meeting the oncoming spear with the black blade.

Ignoring the slight anger the curse gave him, Shirou activated Reinforcement, reinforcing both himself and the sword. Himself to the multiple of six, and the sword to ten.

The two weapons met, and Shirou's blade, one that took almost a year worth of research to make, shattered against the superior blade. Still, Shirou flooded the sword with prana, remaking the blade even as he ducked under the only slightly slowed attack.

The jewel on the bottom of the hilt lit up, giving a small boost in speed and strength to Shirou, in return for making the curse the blade gives off much stronger. Luckily, Shirou's Magic Resistance and Curse Resistance managed to get nullify most of the curse leaving him only mildly affected.

Under his enemy's guard, Shirou projected Magus Killer, taking one hand away from Tora-Shinia to slash the figure in front of him. When the sword was right about to hit, however, Lancer leapt back, drastically increasing his speed to dodge the attack.

Now having distance, Shirou stabbed Magus Killer into the ground, pulling out the other Tora-Shinia out from Gate of The Emiya Household. That done, Shirou dismissed Magus Killer, instead, opting to store his enemy's weapon within Unlimited Blades Works. The spear had two special abilities.

The spear was Gae Bolg, a cursed spear capable of defying destiny, it's attack able always hit the heart, regardless of how well defended, how well one dodges. Luckily, it seemed to have a range limit, so if Shirou jumped away fast enough, he would be able to avoid the attack.

The spear itself would be a costly projection, even with his great skill with the magic, but it's ability was powerful, and, once made, would cost about 80 Mp, about the cost of projecting Magus Killer once. The spear also had an Anti-Army ability, capable of gathering prana and blowing enemies away, it was sad, but he didn't have enough Mp to use that.

Overall, the spear was far superior to Shirou's current weaponry, and he knew that. So, quickly coming up with a plan before Lancer hit the ground, Shirou came up with two possible solutions to deal with his opponent. One, would be to keep the man on the defensive by opening Unlimited Blade Works and keep Holy Swords and Magus Killers streaming out, eventually pinning him down under the mass of swords, the other option was to surprise him with his own weapon, Tracing Gae Bolg, and launching it at him while he was still in shock.

Plan one had two major flaws, one was simply the amount of speed and skill his opponent possessed. The second, was how much Mp it would cost to slowly whittle Lancer's defense away to make a disabling strike. Along with constant swords, costing 75-85 mp per blade, and another 10-15 Mp to launch each sword, he would probably run out of Prana before he actually managed to injure his opponent.

Plan two had two similar problems, one being the cursed nature of the spear, and his probable inability to stop it from controlling him. The second was, once again, the cost. The spear cost a little over 1000 Mp, not counting in the use of it, and, as it's actual owner, Cú Chulainn might be able to nullify the technique somehow.

As of right now, Shirou had 2650 prana total prana, brought down to 2548 by the strikes already done, which means he could do either plan, or both, for a short time. His Mp regeneration was about 26.5 Mp per minute, boosted to 31.8 by his buffs, so one Mp per 1.8 seconds. Roughly speaking, Reinforcing himself up to Lancer's stats would take reinforcing himself six times, but due to the more one-sided nature, would probably make him boost it to seven times, or activating Time Accel. That would take about twenty Mp per second.

That meant that, fighting with the same base stats, but with only two Tora-Shinia would allow him to fight for about two minutes. Obviously, that was inhumane, and Shirou would have to cast spells to keep up with his opponent's superior skill and weaponry. Each sword would take about five seconds off of his total time, and any refreshment spells he would need to keep up with opponent's superior stamina would take a small portion as well. He would regain about 63 over the course of the fight, but that would adjust if he took off any time or added any on.

Of course, due to his opponent's weapons being vastly superior, each time one of his swords met with his enemies spear, he would have to fix it, which could take anywhere from one hundred Mp to one Mp. That would adjust the time with each strike. Luckily, each blade had about six hundred units of prana the blades had gathered to keep them alive without their master nearby. Units they wouldn't let him use, in case he ran out.

Still, the blades would repair themselves until they only had enough to keep themselves alive. He was rather proud of teaching them how to live another day, given how berserk they were to begin with, but it wouldn't help him win this fight.

Moreover, his opponent had a great measure of skill with his spear. Equal or greater than Shirou's own, and with a style he had never seen, and only had defensive against because of his new found familiarity with the weapon, while the servant probably had probably faced Kenjutsu, or at least Kendo at some point in his life.

The chances, Shirou considered, were leaning in his opponent's favor.

_Didn't Lancers have really low luck?_ Shirou wondered.

Finally, the Lancer landed. "You know kid, I didn't know a human could match a servant in combat. Who are you?" he asked, both a look of enjoyment and small annoyance passing through his face. Shirou smiled widely, trying to make it look like he was in control. "Ah, my name is Shirou Emiya, class president of the second years."

Suddenly, a small shout interrupted the two of them. "Emiya! What are you doing here! Why are you fighting a servant!" Tohsaka Rin shouted. Shirou looked at her inquisitively, "Because they were fighting on school property?" he tested, pointing to 'The Nameless Archer' and 'Servant Lancer'.

Suddenly, a new thought occurred to Shirou. "Tohsaka what are you doing here?" he shouted. Rin puffed out her chest, ready to explain and boast about her powerful servant, "I-" Shirou had started speaking before she could though, "You could get seriously hurt!" he boldly proclaimed.

Running over to her faster than she had ever seen him, or any other human, move, Shirou grabbed her hand and led her away. "You shouldn't put yourself in danger, Tohsaka!" he insisted. Rin, so far in shock that she didn't know how to appropriately respond, jerked her hand away. "I am a Master!" she shouted, slapping him in the face for good measure.

Archer stared at the two strangely, before shrugging and following, "It seems we'll have to finish this another time, Lancer." he said mysteriously.

As the three of them walked off, leaving a stunned Lancer behind, Shirou contemplated what would have happened had the battle continued. With all of his extra powers and abilities he figured he might have been able to win, and would definitely injure the man enough for him to think about doing it again. The fact remained, however, that the little fight had boosted Shirou's offensive power drastically, the Noble Phantasm spear he was using would allowing Shirou to have a one-hit kill on almost everything.

But it also showed Shirou how far he was behind. He had had almost no trouble in eight, almost nine years, and even more had passed since anything he faced had seriously managed to hurt him, but every attack Lancer did had had the possibility to kill him.

It made him wonder how prepared he really was.

After the three had left the school, the mysterious Archer fading away into invisibility. Rin, finally gathering her thoughts into complete sentences, shouted, "What are you doing!" she shouted, "You cost an encounter with Lancer! Now he knows some of Archer's abilities, and we don't know any of his!" she shouted, throwing her hands up in the air.

Shirou cocked his head to the side, "You also know the abilities he used on me, and I can tell you his name and Noble Phantasm. I just don't want them to fight on school ground, in case they break something." he reasoned, trying to calm the angry Tohsaka down.

Rin stopped, "What do you mean you know his Noble Phantasm!" she commanded, only phrasing it like a question. Shirou, however, did not know of how special such an ability was, so, like an idiot, Shirou answered truthfully, "I have a special ability that allows me to tell the history of anything I see, though its clearest with weapons, especially swords." he explained.

Rin was shocked, not only was her class president a magus, who could defend himself against a servant of one of the three knight classes, a feat few could accomplish, and now he had some Mystic Eyes ability to see the history of objects!_ Could today get any weirder?_ she had to ask herself.

The answer, of course, was yes, as she would find out.

**Stats:**

**Shirou Emiya, Class President, Son of the Magus Killer.**

**Health: 2600**

**Magic: 2500**

**Strength: 47**

**Endurance: 50**

**Dexterity: 48**

**Intelligence: 45**

**Wisdom: 38**

**Magic: 50**

**Luck: 30**

**Skills Menu:**

**Element: Sword/Sword**

**Magic Resistance: (E-) 10**

**Curse Resistance:(E-) 10**

**Unlimited Blade Works: Level 6 46.98%**

**At this level, Unlimited Blade Works passively increases your ability to wield a sword, knife, archery, spear, or gun, with added ability to broadswords. Gives a 6% Exp increase with Sword Skills, 5% Exp increase in Archery Skills, 4% Exp increase with Knife Skills, 3% Exp increase with Spear skills, 2% Exp increase with Gun Skills, and 1% added increase with Broadsword related skills.**

**Gate to the Emiya Household Level 1 76.94%**

**Allows you to create portals to instantly take anything you own out any claimed area. Embodies what you own and the creativity of man.**

**Charisma: (E+) Level 21 24.32%**

**Increases both leadership and morale of troops slightly.**

**Nobel Air: Level 5 12.34%**

**Lets one appear slightly above one's social status while activated.**

**Divinity: (E) Level 1 3.95%**

**At this level, all stats are raised slightly, along with Mana purity.**

**Cooking: (E) Level 1236 56.39%**

**At this level, it is safe to say you are one of the best cooks in the world. This rank might be found among better five star restaurants.**

**Cleaning: (E) 1347 43.25%**

**At this level, one can clean faster than physically possible, and will always know the fastest way to clean any non-magical object.**

**Zen: Level 235 21.45%**

**The art of clearing yourself of all distractions and becoming something else. At this level, you can drastically increase the powers of whatever weapon you use.**

**Gaia's blessing: (E) Level 134 86.90%**

**Gives a passive bonus to luck on earth. Slightly decreases the cost of Magecraft.**

**Saber:**

**Innate Sword Skills: (B-) 72**

**You instinctively know how to wield a blade with great skill.**

**Kendo: (E+) Level 769**

**At this level, you are a true master at Kendo, able to see every benefit or disadvantage any Kendo move would do instantly.**

**Kenjutsu: (C-) Level 436**

**At this level, you are a master at the ancient art of Kenjutsu, and are able to use the skill even under extreme circumstances without thought.**

**Lancer:**

**Innate Spear Skills: (E) 12**

**Berserker:**

**Mental Pollution: (E) 7**

**Due to the innate difference with how you see reality, mental interference has slightly lowered effect.**

**Rider:**

**Driving: Level 15**

**At this level, you understand the basics of driving.**

**Archer:**

**Innate Archery Skills: (C) 30**

**You innately know how to wield any bow with a high measure of skill.**

**Innate Gun Skills:(E-) 8**

**You innately know how to wield a gun with a low level of skill.**

**Independent Action: (E-) Level 2 2.31**

**You can act independently, but will often find it more preferable to do what people tell you to.**

**Caster:**

**Time Alter: 794 86.48%**

**Allows you to multiply your perception of time by 22, with feeling the weight of the time after you stop. Allows you to one seventh the ageing process, one fourteenth the perception of time of another living things, and speed up yours by 7.94 without loss.**

**Reinforcement: Level 896 82.39**

**Let's you multiply the existence of an object by 89.6, and can safely multiply your body by 44.8. (Skill effectiveness increases the more you know about the object.)**

**Enchanting: (E) Level 152 23.49%**

**Allows you to create mystic items, and put certain abilities on items.**

**Jewel Magecraft: Level 246 25.94%**

**Allows you to enchant jewels, storing large amounts of mana into their forms.**

**Matou Magecraft: Level 1 00.00%**

**Let's you control familiars, specifically bugs.**

**Destruction Magic: (E-) Level 5 24.36**

**Basic Magecraft: 326**

**At this level, let's you cast most basic spells, as well as some higher level magecraft. Limited to common knowledge magecraft.**

**Necromancy: Level 1 01.00**

**At this level, you can react to the dead, but have little to no control over them.**

**Territory Creation: (C) 31**

**At this level, a workshop is possible under certain conditions.**

**Assassin:**

**Presence Concealment: (E-) Level 2 15.75**

**Let's you conceal yourself slightly.**

**Innate Knife Skills: (E+) 24**

**You inductively know how to wield a knife with a high level of skill.**

**Random Sentence!: Don't call me out on the math!**

**Author's note: I apologize to anyone who had to read the original version of this chapter, I hadn't checked anything to test out a Beta, but he had to leave about half-way through. Apparently, the chapter I was going to post didn't get saved correctly, so I had to go back and fix that. For your patience I give you another random sentence.**

**Random Sentence!: Blame everything on the Beta!**


	8. Chapter 10-2

As the two of them walked, Shirou thought about what the titles of the two 'Servants' meant. After a while of walking in the same direction, Shirou decided to just ask her, along as where they were going.

"So, Rin, what is a servant?" Rin stopped, staring at him with a mixture of a hateful glare, and an awed expression. "A servant is a heroic spirit summoned for the Holy Grail War, a battle royal between seven masters." she answered cautiously, wondering if he really didn't know that. Shirou nodded, _So they were part of the Holy Grail War. Perhaps I should have tried to kill him after all. Well, what's done is done._ he thought.

"I see. I suppose you are the master of Archer?" he asked, looking at her title, **"Master of Archer."** Rin stared at him suspiciously, "Have you been following me?" she asked. "No!" Shirou denied, "I just used some basic magic to tell me who you are!" he claimed.

Rin narrowed her eyes, knowing that such magecraft existed, but already knowing something like that would not count as 'basic'. "And what magecraft was that?" she questioned. Shirou raised his arms, "Structural Analyses does that same thing, though I usually use more strenuous methods." he explained, dodging the question.

Rin gave her best glare, but decided to give it up, if he wasn't telling her, then it would be something he wouldn't share anyway, she reasoned. Instead, she focused on following Shirou to his house. She was stunned, however, when he asked his second question. "So... is this the direction to your house?"

Rin jumped slightly, "I thought this was the direction to your house!" Shirou looked at her strangely, "This isn't the direction to my house, I thought this was the direction of your house?" Rin looked at Shirou, "No... I was following you to your house." Shirou looked back at her, "This isn't the direction to my house."

Rin glared at him, gritting her teeth slightly, "Then how will we get to your house?" she asked him. Shirou looked around, "Your a mage, right?" he asked. Rin leaned her head slightly, "Yes..." she trailed off. Confirming that no one else was around, Shirou opened Gate of The Emiya Household, creating a large enough portal for himself to walk through, "The small comforts of being a magic user." Shirou sighed, walking through the portal floating in mid air. "You coming?" he asked.

Hesitantly, Rin stepped through the golden portal, and came to the view to a large estate, with a beautiful garden around both it and it's shed. _Probably for some magical benefit._ It was designed in traditional Japanese style, which hinted at Shirou's heritage, despite the red hair. He seemed to have some, almost unnoticeable defensive measures. Quite a bit of the house had a presence of magic on it, though she couldn't identify some of it.

Shirou smiled, "Welcome to my humble abode." The house was anything but humble. It had massive amounts of magical aura floating around the entire area, kept inside by the boundary field around the house. It was decorated in very nice, if somewhat expensive, furnishing, freshly painted and all without a speck of dust anywhere to be found.

The hall, at least what she could see of it, was well furnished, with various well-made sets of armor and swords, including a large, pure white sword sheathed over the room they had appeared in front of. The wooden floors were polished to a shine, and the entire hall had a pleasurable smell to it, like it had just been cleaned.

Shirou smiled, "So... where are we going in my house?" he asked. Rin, realizing that her class president, who she had just found out to be a Magus less than five minutes ago, saw two logical options she could choose. The first would be to act very against her nature and try to seduce him, hoping to steal some of his research, which was very unlike her, but she would do for Magic. The second, which was much less likely to force her into a mad killing rampage, would be to simply inquiry about his research, befriending him and learning, possibly exchanging, some of his practiced magecraft, possibly seducing Shirou in the process.

She could probably handle seducing him. It wasn't that she wanted to do so or anything.

Still, her better choice was to befriend Shirou, she eventually realized. So, Rin started asking him friendly questions. "So how did you hold back Lancer anyway, that's a feat of an actual legendary hero?" she asked. Shirou perked up slightly, before blushing, "It was nothing, I simply used some basic reinforcement and projection to wear down his defense."

Now it was Rin's turn to be surprised, "Magecraft that simple?" she asked. Shirou nodded, "I don't actually know a lot of different spells, anything beyond what my dad taught me and Basic Magecraft out of my league. Luckily, that means I can focus on more useless abilities, like Reinforcement, and find their hidden power." he smiled, laughing slightly at his own joke.

Rin, however, took it entirely serious, while simultaneously taking it as a joke, and making a mental note of it. "What power would that by?" she asked. Shirou smilied brighter, "Human Reinforcement." he answered simply. Rin felt herself go slack, and her jaw drop. "Hunan Reinforcement is extremely dangerous!" she yelled, before she remembered who she was talking to."I suppose that if you can open a portal through reality then it probably shouldn't be that big of a deal though." she tried, hoping he didn't see her blunder.

Not noticing, or not caring, Shirou smiled, "It is one of my better achievements, though personally I would say my best is Tora-Shinia." he nodded. That interested Rin. Generally, magus would keep to themselves, acting in official ways, but only working in their own, or their families benefit. Though she hadn't experienced it much herself, they were also very secretive, even about things that would effect others. It was because of that silence that she didn't know what was happening to her sister.

She had assumed that she was doing normal type training, and being trained in the Matou Magecraft, but she didn't know because, even when a heir is given away, Magecraft was not shared. It made the show Shirou put up both a great deal more interesting, and very possibly more profitable. As the method he had been using stretched to the level of possibly being the First True Magic, and since he had showed it willingly, it heavily hinted that he may be extremely powerful.

So, Rin was questioning him. Her family had a clear goal for control of the Second Magic, if Shirou's had possible connection, and apparently a very powerful one, to the First Magic, then she would record it as much as she could, so that her family could make way in that area of study as well. Though Second Magic would probably remain the lead focus of her family for many generations, probably until they either won the Holy Grail, or actually obtained the Second Magic.

For that reason, Rin felt the need to understand his daily training, or if the magic was so easy it didn't require it. "What's Tora-Shinia?" she asked. Shirou smiled, leading her down an outer hallway, probably to either a dining area or a storage place where he could show off. "Tora-Shinia is a cursed blade, done throughout its life as a shinia. I managed to make two Projections of it though, both with its ability." he explained. Rin nodded, that sounded extremely useful, but only theoretically, as the cost was probably extremely high, though it showed incredible amount of skill. "I then increased its power drastically, and evolved it until it was both sentient and different enough to constantly exist in this world so long as they have a small amount of magic stored within them."

Rin felt her jaw slacken. That was something that could honestly be counted as True Magic. In fact, making a sword sentient was a lower form of the Third True Magic, magic of the soul, making it a constant in the world was probably a simple method, but the fact that he kept Gaia from rejecting it showed skill when it came to his craft, especially if he could probably use the same process to replicate powerful artifacts.

"How did you manage to do that?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't notice such an obvious attempt to gain his Magecraft. Shirou smiled lightly, taking a left through a door to the outside. "I'm sure you've done more impressive things." he waved her off, "But I manged to carve some runes into my Projections, giving them the ability to gather Prana. It wasn't quite enough, so I gave them some Mana holding stuff imbue into the hilts. I should be able to increase the Mana gathering abilities soon, but until then they'll have to remain connected to something else with Mana at least a few hours every day." he explained.

Actually hearing Shirou blabber on about exactly how he did his magic, and its weaknesses, Rin felt her mind start jumping to conclusions. The first, of course, was that he was such a high-level mage that he didn't care about sharing how he did many of his spells. Similarly, the Tohsaka family's own magic was originally given to them by a powerful magician who also used it. The second possibility, is that he wished for her to join him in his research. It was plausible, but not really something a magi would do to someone they just met. The third, was that he wished to exchange information, and he was giving her a small fraction of his knowledge to gain a small fraction of her own. The fourth, and this was something she hoped against, was that he wished to 'procreate' with her.

The last one she would not do, even if he could do True Magic. _Most Magus' would do in a heartbeat._ she reminded herself. Shaking her head slightly, she decided to think of that later. Hopefully, he wouldn't do that, and he would try to ask for her help, or something.

Shirou, noticing the blush on Rin's face, looked back at her worriedly."Are you okay? Any trouble manifesting your Servant?" he asked, stopping his walk down the fresh grass to make sure she was alright. Rin flushed, waving him off and noticing for the first time that they had changed areas.

They were now in the backyard to the estate. The grass was cut seemingly to perfection, as not a single blade of grass stood above another, nor did a single blade droop. It was a fresh, bright green and just looking at it seemed to refresh her slightly. Thus hinting that he even mowed his lawn with magic. Not only was that a massive waste of Mana, but it also probably meant that he had enough to spare, or used magic for everything. Of course, it could also mean that he obsessed over the smallest details of his lawn, but that was unlikely.

Shirou was leading them toward a small shed near the back of the estate. It was surrounded by small bushes and plants that she recognized as potion regredients. Most of them shouldn't have been in bloom, however. Strangely, they all seemed to perfectly healthy and in full bloom, even the ones that didn't bloom this time of year. That increased the chance that he used his Mana sparingly. Which, in turn, hinted that he had quite a bit of extra Mana, or that he had many fields of study, or many servants.

Archer, still apparently far away, warned her not to allow herself to be tricked by the possible master. Still, it was common knowledge to anyone that honestly considered fighting in the Grail Wars that a human couldn't match a Servant. In fact, from the fight itself, he did seem to have a slight disadvantage, even with his insane amount of Human Reinforcement and Mana he had apparently been using. Even his apparent First True Magic did almost nothing against Lancer, the class with the lowest Magic Resistance.

Archer didn't seem that convinced, arguing that most Magi would be prideful enough to think they could beat a Servant without help. Rin rolled her eyes internally, _If he was that arrogant than he would not have blushed when I complemented him._ she dismissed the idea entirely. _Are you sure you're not in love?_ he asked sarcastically. Rin, however, was not very good at picking up on such things. As such, she stuttered, out loud no less, "W-w-w-what are y-you talking about! St-stupide Archer!"

Noticing that she had yelled that out loud, with absolutely no warning whatsoever, Rin ground her teeth, trying to save at least a small measure of grace. "Talking to Archer? He didn't seem like someone that said things like that." he chuckled slightly, before continuing on. Rin ignored Archer's paranoid rambling on how he was listening in.

Rin sighed, _His cool demeanor almost tricked me into thinking I got a decent Servant._ Still, at least she seemed to be getting at least one incrediably valuable thing from the War, even if she didn't win. Though, if she lost it was highly likely that she would live to tell the tale, as her father before her.

Shirou led her down several rows of various magical plants, in seemingly random orders, though she did think that one or two of them were planted in a circle. Slowly, he reached for the wooden door, and brought it back. Rin, realizing fully for the first time, saw the true nature of the building. Just opening the door to the small building let out a powerful, condensed amount of Mana, on she instantly felt surrounding her body, seemingly healing her.

On the left side of the building, there lay a variety of machines, both common junk and engines, as well as a full motorcycle in the middle of the half, standing up with most of its innards gutted. She also saw obvious, and discrete, runes carved into many items. While the actual Mana and power the runes did was probably very low, it would probably increase the durability and any function whatever he carved it on actually did, espeally since he seemed to actually know mechanics in the first place.

What really interested her, however, was on the right side of the room. On the far right, almost against the wall, were three obelisks, each holding up a small blade, two identical black katanas and one white longsword. There was a very concentrated prencece of Mana in the room, and she felt as if most, if not all of her tiredness faded away with the atmosphere in the room. Various potion ingredients were strewed out on the table, and the draws on the wall near the table showed he wasn't running low on supplies. Various books were opened to certain pages, or bookmarked at a certain place, with a semi-organized shelf with obvious spots where the missing books went.

Rin smiled, deciding to wring as much of Shirou's knowledge of runes and potions, and the limited access to the First Magic, that she possible could.

On a slightly different plane, a small, glowing white 'boy' felt that the correct way to display his emotions would be to smile. It was sad not having a body some times.

**Random Sentence!: I figured out how to translate on my 'Computer'! Wooooh!**


	9. Chapter 1167-1158

When Shirou escorted Rin through his house, he noticed she held a vacant expression on her face. Occasionally, she would get a pensive look on her face, which was generally followed by a blush of some kind. It was a little more than slightly upsetting and strange, though he was used to it from Sakura. Still, it was something that he wasn't used to seeing, which only cemented the thought that he could never understand women.

Still, it left him questioning as to what, exactly, Rin and Archer were talking about. Is Archer some kind perverted Hero? He might be some misogynist hero, or a hero whose legend happened during a time where people didn't believe that women should do anything but look pretty. Shirou felt he would he would dislike Archer even more if he was sexist- although he was already disliking him a lot.

Still, Shirou decided not to voice anything- after all, it wasn't his place (even he had enough common sense to know that). Instead, he simply led Rin to his workshop without doing anything that could be constituted as offensive, or that would make her think he was assuming something he shouldn't know, for he would want to have a friend that he could discuss Magecraft with.

When he was finally at the small road he had made to the door of his workshop through his garden, Shirou reconsidered when Rin sighed suddenly. He felt more than slightly concerned that he wasn't showing off enough power. He had heard of the five True Magics, and he had several abilities that he fully believed would evolve into them, and wondered if his work didn't measure up to her expectations.

Swallowing, Shirou desperately hoped that she wouldn't be disappointed and could perhaps teach him a new skill, as only having Basic Magecraft, and seven other skills, with no known way of increasing two of them, he really needed help. Most of his skills had already hit the limiting factor he called the 'soft limit'. Slowly, each and every level, it got harder and harder to increase- it only became easier to increase when he increased either his Luck or in level, it would get significantly easier. For instance, at level ten, it was relatively difficult to get anything to over level one-hundred, but now that he was at level thirty, getting a skill to level a hundred is easily accomplished with one day of hard training.

It also seemed that some skills were on a higher level than others. For instance, Reinforcement, even almost at level one-thousand was still easier to level up than Kenjutsu, or Destruction Magic. With skills like Unlimited Blade Works, it was almost impossible to increase, easily over a hundred times harder than other skills. Even stranger, some skills had rankings on them, E-, E, C-, C and etc. This, to Shirou, only served to increase his surety that skills had levels and powers he didn't know about, or were never explained.

Shirou shook his head slightly, and opened the door in front of him.

Two status effects he had worked hard for hit him like a pleasant aroma, even as the concentrated Mana from inside the workshop hit him like a pleasant breeze. Inside this, his Mana regeneration rate was vastly increased, along with stamina regeneration rate. Additionally, some stats, like Intelligence, are also increased (albeit slightly), as the higher than normal levels of ambient Mana refreshes the mind. Inside, he could easily last through three days of experiments and training while only feeling the mental and physical strain of a single day. Really, it was so glorious.

Nonetheless, he wasn't sure if it was enough to convince Rin that he was someone who she would benefit from talking to. He supposed it wasn't truly necessary, but Shirou hadn't had anyone to compare his Magecraft with, and thus both needed and wanted someone to compare and base himself off of.

Instead, he had been fully alone, and had practiced mostly for the sake of practice, and to pass the time, rather than for fun or a need to be stronger. After all, today he had proved he could stand against a legendary hero whose stats might have been increased vastly, and had even improved his combat prowess significantly. The spear was something he could use effectively, and an instant kill technique, one of the few things he was lacking in battle.

Shirou shook his head slightly, feeling the weight of the day lift off his shoulders. It all comes down to the simple fact that I haven't had any friends I could talk about Magecraft with. Looking back, Rin seemed almost flabbergasted, a word he didn't get to use that often, and had immediately focused on the three pillars he had put inside of his workshop.

Each one held a blade, two of the cursed shinai, neither of them showing their original form, of course, and a single copy of Holy Sword on the final blade. He was thinking of making two or three more, to create the other major swords he had, such as Magus Killer, but the materials required to make them was very costly, and he could only afford to make one or two a year with his current budget.

To be honest, it wasn't truly the budget itself, it was the raw materials that had to be used in the small pillar. Each required a small amount of stone, stone he had to often carve himself. The inside had to be filled with materials that would conduct Mana, which were semi-rare crystals and other semi-rare materials. Then, he had to hook up each one to the network he had set up, or completely rebuild to compensate. It was all very time consuming, and while it constantly increased his skills in almost every area, when they had reached the soft cap, it simply wasn't worth the entire weeks it took to reset. The point was, his workshop was awesome, and would continually improve as he worked on it, but it took a long time to set up.

My thoughts are wandering again. Turning back to reality, hopefully without drifting back to la-la land this time, Shirou turned to see Rin seemingly off in la-la land. Although it was probably because she hadn't built it, Rin was still affected by the status effects, and her posture became more relaxed while her eyes seem to sharpen in focus.

A quick glance around, and Rin darted off towards the three obelisks he had against the wall. Specifically, she went to the one charging the Holy Sword, and started examining it. She started with a full inspection, from top to bottom, then back to top again. She examined the sword itself, the internal physical parts of the pillar, and the outer edges. If he had to guess, Shirou would bet that she was also using some sort spell to examine its magical properties as well.

After a few minutes, she seemed to give up trying to understand it by herself. "Would you mind explaining how this works?" she asked, trying to sound more exhausted and annoyed than she truly was. Shirou, not being the best at reading, or understanding, people, complied. "It's pretty simple in concept, I guess, but pretty hard to actually regulate. Basically, the pillars are taking a small portion of the mana of the boundary field around the workshop, and slowly feed it into the blades, keeping them projected even though I'm not paying for them anymore. The jewel in the hilt stores the extra mana, so it can be taken off for a time." he explained.

Rin felt her jaw drop and practically unhinge as she thought about that. In essence, he had created a way to recreate any weapon. If he didn't have to pay for the blade, and it would stay in the world, he had created a way to create weapons permanently, sustained by the world itself. It took a second for Rin to realize, True Magic was something capable of doing things science could, under no condition, do. That included creating matter.

Rin felt herself go giddy at such a thought, though she hid it well.

As for Shirou, he felt slightly inadequate realizing that the only real fruits of this portion of his Magecraft had only succeeded in creating two cursed weapons, hardly even ranked by the game, and a sword much the same, only with light. While the actual process was quite a feat, his use of it now was rather sub-par, and rather lacking in power. He probably could have gone further simply enchanting weapons. Still, with that spear I saw today, I think I'll have fair justification to continue to study this path of Magecraft.

Walking forward slightly, Shirou decided he may as well see if Rin could help him a little. "One thing I can't quite figure out, however, is that the blades don't seem to be exact copies of the original. The two black blades are copies of Fujimura-sensei's Torashinai. However, both seemed to have somehow changed, both becoming stronger, but I dislike the unknown variable in my Magecraft, and would at least like to know what is affecting my experiments." Shirou explained.

Rin went very giddy that Shirou had trusted her with something as important as an unknown in his Magecraft. Quickly mulling over the problem for a few seconds, Rin suggested the first possible problem. "It could be that, since Gaia's will cannot completely dispel the swords, that it at least changes the blades from being the same. It would push the blades from being the exact same, if not completely changing them. It would probably be very slight, but it could very well be the problem." she explained.

Shirou felt like slamming his head into a wall. Of course Gaia's influence still affects my creations! It's the very thing that keeps me from using my Reality Marbles to their full power all the time, and the very thing that keeps Dead Apostles from killing everything. Feeling more than slightly idiotic for missing something so basic, for months no less, Shirou introduced his hand to his face.

Rin, hearing the sound of Shirou slapping himself, turned around. Instantly realizing exactly what had happened, Rin stifled a laugh. Still, when a funny joke makes one laugh, it is hard to completely silent it. Shirou turned to her, a look of fake betrayal on his face. "In my defense, that's not something I have to worry about very much." he sniffed lightly. Rin chuckled, struggling keep at least a fairly decent composure. "Yeah right, every Magi has to worry about Gaia." she laughed.

Before their laughter truly stopped, but after it had settled down to a comfortable chuckled, Shirou felt Archer finally run into the estate. Strangely, he seemed to already somehow know where everything was, except the gardens. He jumped straight unto the regeneration section. The door slammed open suddenly, and Shirou saw two swords, one black and one white, heading towards his neck.

Falling back, Shirou traced two Holy Swords and met the two blades aimed at his neck. The two Holy Swords broke on impact, but bought him enough time to dodge the blow. "Archer!" Turning his head slightly, enough to see Rin, yet not fully take his eyes off of Archer, Shirou saw an odd sight. Rin looked very mad, in fact, Shirou thought he saw her right hand glowing with some sort of magical energy. Suddenly, Shirou decided one thing was absolutely certain. Rin looks scary when she's mad. Which was promptly followed by I must not make Rin mad at me.

Archer's swords suddenly disappeared in a flash of light, and Archer leaned back. "Rin, I was only making sure he didn't do anything to you." he assured her calmly. Didn't seem like it to me. Shirou internally wined.

A bright light drew Shirou's attention. Turning to see it, he found a fairly small, magic circle glowing brightly. Rin slumped down, clearly shocked. Archer raised an eyebrow, standing still for a few moments before jumping forward as fast as he could.

Shirou, having heard the sound, and having regained most of his health and mana, traced Archer's own weapons to block, finding them at least adequate for such an attack. He didn't expect, however, for the attack to literally throw him across the room, and into the wall no less. Archer leapt forward to finish the job, but a something blocked him.

One sword met two, and the single blade easily pushed both of the lesser blades back. "I am Servant Saber, and I have responded to the call. I ask of you, are you my Master?"

...Omake...

Shirou looked at Rin, having just dodged Archer's blades. Looking at Rin, however, Shirou saw the most scary thing he had seen in his entire life. "Status Effect Tsundere has been activated. All damage by heroine to protagonist is multiplied by five hundred." Suddenly, Shirou really did not wish to be the protagonist. Slowly, Rin stalked forward, slowly.

Archer seemed paralyzed in shock, as if remembering something horrible before backing away slightly. "Now Rin, be reasonable, I thought that he was going to hurt you!" Archer frantically screamed. Rin growled, sounding more like an animal than a woman. "Status Effect Mad Rage has been activated. All attacks have been doubled."

Finally, Rin reared and, casting some strange spell, slapped Archer as hard as she could. Shirou watched, as the slap connected for six damage, taking almost no health from Archer, before getting multiplied by the status effect. Archer took thirty thousand damage, fully draining his health bar to a near zero.

Watching Servant collapse, Rin huffed something about a "useless Servant", and stomped off, apparently not noticing the small cracks in the floor she left behind in her wake.

Shirou gulped. Remind me to never get on her bad side.

Random Sentence!: Not-so-Random Sentence: I started writing a book!


	10. Chapter 100-90

Before Shirou stood a young woman of indescribable beauty. Her eyes, a blue that shone like the moon, blond hair that shone like gold in the gentle night light. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her blond hair was perfectly combed, and combined with the oddly fitting armored blue dress, and the gentle moonlight barely leaking into the small shed, he was rendered speechless from her radiance.

It took his brain a while to reboot to finally notice the floating box above her head, which identified her as Saber. Specifically "Servant Saber, 'Servant Saber' Level 60."

"I am Servant Saber, and I ask of you, are you my master?" she asked. Almost dumbly, Shirou nodded, and only reacted when her eyes widened at the sight of Archer. "Master, are these two attacking?" she demanded, taking up a notably combat stance, with an apparently invisible two-handed weapon in hand. Grunting slightly, and ignoring two screens on the edge of his vision, he frantically got between Saber and Archer. "Ah! N-no, we are currently allied. I am sorry to say, but I did not plan to summon you, please forgive me." Over the small attempt at peace, Shirou managed to level his voice from frantic, to a fairly flat diplomatic tone, ending his sentence with a formal Japanese bow.

After a short clank, his newly summoned Servant nodded, "Very well." Taking that as a dismissal Shirou returned to his full height, immediately mentally winced when he saw his Servant's definite European features. It wasn't as if a traditional bow was a true mistake, but if he had considered her appearance in his actions, he likely would have made his statement much more effective.

Despite the mess-up, the female Saber did not appear to mind, and simply nodded. Shirou, slightly relieved that the western hero didn't notice, or at least didn't mind his mistake, smiled. "Pardon me, but would any of you like some tea or anything. I guess haven't been a very nice host yet." he chuckle. At once, all three of his guests turned their gaze to him in an utter deadpan. Winching a little, Shirou chuckle nervously."Just asking."

Sighing, Rin nodded. "Very well, I would very much like some tea." she sighed, walking out from his workshop. Seeing this, both Archer and Saber copied, moving in the vague direction their masters were.

Once inside, Shirou showed Rin to a seat at his table, and went into his kitchen to make her, and the rest of his company, a cup of tea. Since his cooking was unnaturally high, and he had the ability to use magic to help him, he managed to not only finish the tea in half the time it rightfully should have taken, but also increase the pleasant aroma, delicate taste, and overall flavor of the drink well beyond its normal capabilities.

It was during this time that he decided it would be acceptable to check the two screens he had so far ignored. The first was an official notification that he had, indeed, summoned Saber, giving the warning that she would take a very large amount of his Mana. It didn't seem to be very much, so he left that slide. It also informed him that she was both weakened and strengthened by his summoning. On one hand, she took a massive 20% dip thanks to inexperience with the summoning spell, and on the other she a ten percent increase by their alike Origins, with a small, but growing increase thanks to his Necromancy skill.

The other was a notification that, by summoning this particular Saber, Avalon had partially activated, and would feed off of her Mana as much as its user's.

When he came back to a slightly surprised Archer, a noble looking Saber, and an expectant Tohsaka, he was eager to see them try his cooking. Tohaska accepted the warm drink from his hands gracefully, taking a small sip of it. By the look in her eyes, she liked it. Archer seemed to treat his creation with a creator's eye, evaluating the taste, heat, and aroma while enjoying the flavor, like a chef. Saber, in contrast, seemed to drink with gusto, completely breaking the noble image she had maintained before.

Of course, he had only known Saber for the entirety of two minutes, and most of that was spent away from her, so this wasn't a huge break in character.

After a few seconds of silent observing, Rin set her cup down, "So. You are now the Master of Saber, and, as I am the Master of Archer, we must decide what to do." she explained. Shirou, knowing that Magi were generally not to be trusted, and thus this apprehension making sense, nodded, before voicing his own thoughts. "Right now, I have no reason as to why our Servants would have to fight each other. I myself have very little I would wish into existence, and very little I would wish that I can't do myself with some time." he explained, "So, as far as I am concerned, I have no reason to fight you. If Saber wishes we can team up, and she and Archer can battle it out at the end, alright?"

Rin, almost shocked that he would give her such a fair, if not in her favor, deal when he had the stronger, and potentially the strongest Servant, alongside his ridiculous ability to at least block a Servant, agreed. Nodding to signify her agreement, she was rather grateful for a partnership, as it was likely that several of her enemies would do the same against her. She would have to find out a way for Archer to beat Saber, but besides that, she had no problems with the deal, especially since her Archer would probably not win against Saber with no preparations.

The deal was very likely her best way of winning, since she could put Saber in danger, if needed, and their Servants together would take down any enemy Servants her Archer could not take down alone. So, Rin nodded. Looking to Saber herself, both Masters were relieved to find her nodding in agreement. Granted, her own agreement was based more on actual use of such an agreement, rather than a hope to win, or a wish to not hurt a classmate.

Seeing this, Shirou smiled, before thinking. "Is there any official channels we have to go through to team up, or to get me signed into the War, for that matter?" he asked. Rin nodded, "Now that you're a Master, we have to go see the Fake Priest to register you into the Holy Grail War."

Shirou nodded, "Alright, lead the way."

It took ten minutes for Shirou to convince Saber to wear some decent clothing. He had recorded a few heavy coats while trying to find a good costume for his Hero days and was able to find one that matched her dress. Overall, she looked like an oddball, but not someone who actually wore armor. Sadly, she couldn't go into Astral form because of a fault in her summoning, which was his fault, and wouldn't take off her armor even when he activated Noble Presence and Charisma actively.

It was a sad moment when using his full charismatic prowess failed to even make her consider doing what he had asked.

The walk itself was rather awkward, with complete silence for almost half of it, and only occasional, awkward conversation, mostly about rules and why or why not things should be done. Saber wanted to sleep in his bed in order to protect him better. Shirou told her about the barrier he had around her house, and several protective charms and items he could make if he wanted, and told her that one more room would be more than enough to protect him. "Besides," he had added, "if it was truly so bad you had to lay in my bed to protect me, I could just sleep in my Workshop."

All of their conversations went like this, he managed to avoid some awkward situations, and gleam a bit more information to help with his alarming lack of knowledge about the Holy Grail War, but that was it.

At long last, after almost an hour of almost no conversation between awkward silence, the four arrived at the Fake Priest's church.

As Shirou stepped through the gates, he had to ask. "So, the war's supervisor lives here?" After all, while a priest living in his church wouldn't be that odd, a Magus living in the Catholic church, which once went on witch hunts, was surprising. His father had never said anything about an alliance between Magi and the Church. "Yes," Rin confirmed, "this is the Kotomine church." Seeing the situation as quite odd, and perhaps something to be wary of, but not something of immediate harm, Shirou tried to walk in when Saber stopped him. "Shirou, I think it best if I wait out here."

Shirou turned, trying to read her face and tell what she was thinking. "I accompanied you to this place so I could protect you. If this church is where you'll be tonight then I'm sure I'll be able to find you within its proximity." Not wanting to disagree with her, and having no reason to drag her along, especially since she could be a hero with problems against the catholic church, Shirou nodded.

The door opened with a loud creak, and a quick look around the place showed it to look much like any normal church, if slightly more spooky. It was painted white with large columns around the corners, and had empty wooden pews on both sides. "Tohsaka, just how much do you know about this priest anyway?" he asked, idly wondering why a Magus would even live in a church? Rin continued forward without so much as a pause. "Well, I can tell you that he is a Magus, and happens to be my legal guardian, he's kind of served as my second teacher." her voice didn't sound very happy about that. In fact, he got the feeling that Rin did not like this priest.

"So this priest also belongs to a pagan council of mages?" Shirou asked. He had know the priest looked over the event, and that Rin called him a Fake Priest, but he had assumed that the event was some competition for the christian artifact, and the priest would object to using witchcraft. "Yes," Rin answered neutrally, "and that's why he can be such a pain to deal with."

Turning to look Shirou in the eye, Rin continued. "His name is Kotomine Kirei. His father, Kotomine Risei, worked alongside my father in the 4th Grail War. Kirei was my father's apprentice. I've known him for quite a while, though I would have preferred not to." Just then, a strange man wearing a black priest robe walked out from inside the shadows, taking his place behind the alter. "And I would have preferred to have a student who showed respect to her teacher." he chuckled.

The chuckle had a strange, humorous mirth, and gave Shirou the feeling he needed to watch the man in front of him. The small box floating above his head only reinforced that. "Kirei Kotomine, Fake Priest, Level 32." Shirou hadn't seen anyone with a level above his own in years, with the possible exception of Sakura's Grandfather, for years and then suddenly he found four in the same night.

It was both concerning and invigorating. He knew he needed to get a few levels higher is he was going to be a modern hero, but he could have just gained a few levels passing through life and thought he was ready. Now he knew that he needed to pick up at least ten levels, as well as equipment, and then he could hope to work as a lower-scale hero. Even better, sparring or fighting with them would cut out months, if not years of his training time!

Right now, however, he needed to get officially registered into the Holy Grail War.

Rin sneered, "I brought the seventh master. He seems to be a magus of some skill. Also, I would like to document that the two of us are allied." Kirei raised an eyebrow but did not comment. "Very well, and what is your name, my son?" the priest asked, leaning just within Shirou's personal space. Shirou, slightly unnerved by the strange fake priest's demeanor and question, stepped back slightly, before steadying his resolve. "Emiya Shirou."

The priest went slack for a mere moment, before he regained composure. "Emiya...Shirou?" he mimicked. There was that something, something strange that put Shirou on guard, but that he couldn't place. Then, just for a moment, the priest's lips quirked upwards, and that sensation was suddenly placed. A strange feeling of sickening desire, a strange feeling washed over him, before stopping just as suddenly as it began

The priest straightened himself out, "You are Saber's master, correct?" he asked. Shirou nodded. "That I am. Though I am afraid I am currently acting upon general assumptions of what that means. I only know that the grail grants one wish, and that there are several Servants fighting for it. Sadly, I only know of three of these Servants and have no idea what we have to do to win, or what the actual war is about." Shirou sighed, getting that out of his chest was tough. He wished he could have just had Rin wait outside, but the fake priest was giving him the creeps and he did not want to be alone with him.

The priest gained a look of mischievousness, before gaining a small smile. "Very well, there are seven Servants, Lancer, Saber, Archer, Caster, Berserker, Rider, and, of course, Assassin. To win, every Servant except your own must be eliminated, and the actual war is the fight between these seven heroes of legend. The last Master and Servant will gain one absolute wish.

The Holy Grail itself chooses seven Servants and seven Masters to fight. The Holy Grail War is a spirit descending ritual where you were chosen to fight for its sole possession." The priest's voice was perfectly, unnaturally calm. At the same time, Shirou felt small wave after wave of whatever was washing over him, covered by some sort of strange barrier. Still, there was an obvious hole in this whole event.

"Why can't the grail just choose one Master, the most suitable? There is no need to kill anyone, and no reason at all for Servants to kill Masters!" Shirou's thoughts were sound, and the priest did not help, wording his words to support the misunderstanding. Rin shook her head, "Shirou, there is no rule that says you have to kill masters. The Holy Grail is a spiritual object, only Servants can touch it. The Holy Grail war is to kill all opposing Servants. However, without a Master a Servant cannot stay in this world, so some Masters kill other Masters to keep from fighting their Servants."

Shirou sighed in relief. "Thank goodness. I thought I would have to kill other Masters." "Do you think defeating Servants is so easy?" Kirei asked, "Can you honestly think you can kill any Servant that can challenge your own?" he asked. Shirou smiled. "If Saber cannot defeat her enemy, then it is my job to help her win, right?" he smiled. "Killing Masters might be an easier way to win, but it is wrong. Besides, I have Archer and Rin's help for any opponent we still can't defeat." His voice was as lighthearted as he could muster, but on the inside Shirou recoiled at the very thought of this war.

In a way, it was like a good idea was turned evil, a way to save many, at the cost of some. It was something that Shirou found unacceptable.

Rin nodded, "Still, a Master who is left alive may rejoin the battle with another Servant, so long as they themselves still have a Command Seal and the Servant is without a Master."

Shirou nodded. "And what happens if we were to use all of our command seals?" he asked, "Would the Servants be set free?" Kirei nodded, "Exactly, if you use up all of your command seals, you will be set free from the role of being a Master. Of course, such a Magus would be marked as an incompetent fool." Shirou nodded. "If one were to do that, I would insure their safety, as that is my role."

"This is the Fifth Holy Grail War, the last one was fought ten years ago." Shirou sighed, "You mean you've already done this four times and nobody has wished away the world yet?" he joked. At this Kirei looked up, slightly wide-eyed. "Such a thing would end up in disaster. The wish ten years ago ended with the infamous Fuyuki Fire. If you do not wish for such a thing to happen again, I suggest you try to win yourself." the priest chuckled. "It is far more reliable than relying on others, after all.

Shirou saw the obvious flaw in the man's logic, but nodded. "I have no desire for the Holy Grail, but I will fight since Saber desires it. I guess I'll wish to save people, or wish for Rin's wish or something." He smiled, activating his Charismatic skills. Blatantly ignoring Rin's light blush, the Fake Priest nodded, "Without killing all seven Servants the Holy Grail will not accept you as its Master, so I suggest you make sure that all have been defeated if you plan on winning."

Finally, quite a bit too late for such a lighthearted, yet tense conversation, in Shirou's opinion, the priest turned around. "This is the end of our conversation. I have to go complete the paperwork for your registration, and your alliance with Archer's Master."

Sighing in relief, Shirou turned to Rin. "I guess we better start heading back as well. We also need to make plans for the War, but we can probably do that tomorrow."

Rin nodded, and the two walked out of the church, picked up Saber, and walked home in a now comfortable silence. When they reached the crossroads, where the two would have had to go different directions to go home, they stopped. "Are we going to your house, or mine? Splitting up?" Shirou asked, confused by the situation.

The three stood there awkwardly for several seconds, before being interrupted by as strange call.

"Oii-Chan?"

Random Sentence!: Random Philosophical Question!: Tell me, what is the difference between a hero and a king?


End file.
